Israeli envoy meets Khattar for multi-sector investment

Chandigarh: Israel’s ambassador Naor Gilon on Monday met Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar to discuss collaboration avenues in research, education, health services, and aeronautics, other than the current investment agreements in the agriculture sector.
Gilon praised Haryana for running four centers of excellence in these sectors and said his country was interested in developing joint projects in Haryana because of the state’s “production capacity, efficiency, and atmosphere”. He said: “Israel has 80% investment in India in these sectors, and 50% of that is in Haryana, where Israel sees more investment possibilities beyond agriculture. It is building a village of excellence in the state.”
Gilon sought cooperation from the Haryana government in exploring investment possibilities in telemedicine, Israel’s strong sector. The CM said a lot of fallow land could be given to the fisheries business and micro-irrigation projects. Khattar said: “Haryana has taken up water management and initiated a separate programme of laying a micro-irrigation network of water farm pond, village ponds, and canal-irrigated programmes at a community level, so Israel can explore technical collaboration in this field.”
The CM expressed keen interest in the Ambu bike, Jerusalem’s ambulance on two-wheeler, and favoured inviting the voluntary organisations that run this service to Haryana for tie-up talks. Agriculture minister J P Dalal said: “Being landlocked, Haryana has developed an inland fish culture of more than 2,000 fish ponds and aims to be the biggest producer of prawns.”
Dalal said: “Israel has the technology for dry land horticulture, so we need its help in developing the world’s best dryland horticulture centre at Gignow in Bhiwani. We appreciate Israel for training our officers.”