As part of India's neighbourhood first policy, 4 projects will be jointly inaugurated by PM Modi and Maldives President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih which include lighting up the city of Male with over 2500 LED lights today.
Other than lighting the city, 2,00,000 LED bulbs have already been distributed to households across the country.
The other 3 projects are -- the launch of RuPay card, gifting Fast Interceptor Craft and 3 Fish processing plants. PM Modi and President Solih will inaugurate the project at 4 pm via video conferencing.
With the launch of RuPay card, Maldives will join the growing list of countries--Singapore, Bhutan, UAE, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia where RuPay is acceptable.
RuPay which is India’s version of Master Card and Visa is wide acceptance at ATMs, POS devices and e-commerce websites across India. There are close to 500 million RuPay cards in circulation in India.
India will also gift Fast Interceptor Craft Vessel to Maldives national defence force (MNDF) which will help the Indian ocean Island country patrol its exclusive economic zone.
India has been strengthing the MNDF and earlier this year, India built Coastal Surveillance Radar System and a composite training facility for the defence force was inaugurated during PM Modi's visit to the country, earlier this year.
As part of the growing engagement between Male and New Delhi, PM Modi visited the Maldives as his first foreign destination in his second term.
Last year, that is November 2018, he visited the country during the oath-taking ceremony of President Solih. December this year marks one year since the visit of President Solih to India, his first foreign visit abroad after being elected as President.
Other than assistance and infrastructure development, India is also helping human resource development by training Maldiving civil servants and BCCI coaching the Maldives Men and women cricket team.
