Germany supports India’s Smart Cities Programme
State Secretary Gunther Adler of the German Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety on Monday proposed that Germany would contribute to India’s Smart Cities Programme - namely to projects in Kochi, Bhubaneswar and Coimbatore.
"Germany wants to support the ambitious Smart Cities programme. Here, the German Building Ministry also supports German companies that want to cooperate intensively with Indian partners in order to assist Indian cities in implementing their plan," State Secretary Adler said.
German Ambassador to India, Martin Ney, said, “Germany is an ideal partner in India’s endeavor to create smarter cities: We are very strong at smart planning for urban centres. We have developed the technologies to make life in cities easier. We have developed the processes to bring on board the stakeholders to make cities thrive, and German companies have developed smart solutions to make smart cities.”
State Secretary Adler is in New Delhi on a two-day visit.
He has made this announcement this morning at the 2nd meeting of the Indo-German Working Group on Urban Development, a new forum initiated in 2015.
Germany has already been engaged in various fields related to Smart Cities - such as sustainable urban mobility, water and wastewater management, renewable energies and energy efficiency.
In line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, one of the focal sectors of Germany’s development cooperation has been the improvement of living conditions in urban areas, with a particular emphasis on the urban poor. Germany has been supporting important Indian initiatives such as “Swachh Bharat”, the “National Mission for Clean Ganga” and the “Atal Mission for Urban Rejuvenation and Transformation”.
India is the biggest partner of Germany’s development cooperation programme worldwide. In 2015, this collaboration has reached a new record level of 1.5 billion Euros (Rs 11,000 Crore).
State Secretary Adler also met with his Indian counterparts Madhusudan Prasad, Secretary, Ministry of Urban Development, and Nandita Chatterjee, Secretary, Ministry of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation. He also had a meeting with representatives of the Confederation of Indian Industry.
State Secretary Adler and German Ambassador to India, Dr Martin Ney, will speak at a roundtable “Smart Cities – Opportunities for German Business in India” at the German Embassy.
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