India-Germany join hands for cooperation on ‘Water& Waste Management

The 3rd Indo-German Working Group for cooperation on (i) water and (ii) waste management concluded in New Delhitoday.Delegations from both the ministries – The Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC), Government of India and The Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation, and Nuclear Safety (BMU), Germany – have met and discussed potential cooperation areas in the field of water and waste management.

Though, India-Germany bilateral economic cooperation has been robust and India’s priorities in most areas match with German expertise, but bilateral co-operation in the field of Environment got further strengthened when both the environment ministries organized Second Indo-German Environment Forum during January 2015 wherein these two working groups were constituted, which concluded its third meeting yesterday.
The Indian delegation was headed by Shri Anil Kumar Jain (Additional Secretary, MoEFCC) and experts/officials from CPCB, line ministries, GIZ-India contributed to the discussion. Mr. Jain reiterated that as Indo-German Climate and Renewables Alliance, cooperation in field of Environment needs to be strengthened. The outcomes will be taken up to higher level of collaboration during the Third Indo-German Environment Forum which is scheduled in New Delhi on February 13, 2019 wherein both the Environment Ministers will meet to come up with some major announcements.

The German Delegation was headed by Dr. Regina Dube, Director-General for Water Management and Resource Conservation, BMU-Germany and she stated that Indian side have been very supportive in taking the work ahead.

Both sides concluded today to take work further on – developing reference documents for Textile Sector, Air, Water Governance, Marine Litter, Waste to Energy (Incineration), Bio-methanation, Landfill Sites, Water quality management, training and capacity building of local bodies&Circular Economy.