Indo-German MoU on Sustainable Urban Dev. Programme

Speed Post News Network

New Delhi : An Indo-German MoU was signed on February 23, 2018, for “Implementation Agreement in Sustainable Urban Development and Smart Cities in India”, here.  The objective of the programme is to develop and apply concepts for sustainable urban development including the provision of urban basic services and housing in selected cities and Smart Cities in India.

The agreement was signed between Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs (MoHUA), Government of India (GOI), and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH India, on behalf of the Government of Federal Republic of Germany in the presence of  Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of State (IC) for Housing and Urban Affairs, GOI, and Dr Martin Ney, German Ambassador to India.

The agreement was signed by Rajiv Ranjan Mishra, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, and Ms Annette Röckel, Deputy Country Director, and Ms Tanja Feldmann, Cluster Coordinator, Sustainable Urban and Industrial Development, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH India.

Speaking after signing of the MoU, Minister of State (IC) for Housing and Urban Affairs, GOI,  Hardeep Puri said that the technical cooperation measure will support approaches for sustainable urban development in the area of integrated planning, provision of affordable housing and basic services with particular focus on water, waste water and solid waste management and mobility.

The ‘Sustainable Urban Development Programme – Smart Cities in India’ project is supported by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and jointly implemented by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, GOI, and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). The German contribution to the project is up to 8 million EUR.  The project will continue for a duration of three years (starting from 2018 till December 2020), according to a PIB release.

MoHUA and GIZ will jointly work on implementing Government of India’s missions, the optimisation of the national orientation framework and the dissemination of practice-proven approaches on sustainable urban development. Amongst others, focus is given to integrated planning approaches for the three Smart Cities with development of local innovations and pilot approaches pertaining to the provision of affordable housing and basic services within the three cities.