Early next year, the Minister of Water of the Netherlands accompanied by a large delegation is coming to India and the focus is expected to be on strategic partnership between the two countries in the water sector.
In an exclusive interaction with Financial Express Online, Marten van den Berg, ambassador of the Netherlands in India said that ‘During the visit of the minister and meetings in New Delhi, the agenda includes how to further strengthen our collaboration on water, water management, but also in the maritime industry. There are a lot of companies working in the maritime industry, dredging companies, but also working on technologies, joint research programs on water.
Adding, “The two sides will also discuss how we can work together in the G20 on water.”
The European nation is also working closely on water and Climate and Water and Agriculture; there is a joint technology program in a biological water management system to clean water and treat water, restore the rivers and water bodies, cleaning the water bodies and also investing.
In several areas of India, there is a lot of water stress or common water stress and this poses a huge challenge for agricultural production, especially if it’s very water intensive. “So we work on changing water or certain crops which are more resilient to water scarcity, or different varieties of crops, but also on agricultural management. So farmers are better equipped with water shortages,” Ambassador Marten van den Berg added.
In the first of the 2023, UN 2023 Water Conference from March 22-24, is to take place in New York and India will be participating.
The Dutch government has been supporting in cleaning the Ganga, and in Kanpur helping with the tannery sector too.
According to the ambassador “In Kerala, we have close collaboration with the state of Kerala in, in water management, following floods in 2018 and 2019. We are very much involved in improving water management systems in Kerala, and have increased the collaboration. This year we signed a strategic partnership India-Netherlands on water with the federal government. There is also collaboration with West Bengal in Sundarbans on water management, and dealing with salinization and cleaning the river, as well as Chennai.”