An Indo-German MoU has been signed for an implementation agreement in Sustainable Urban Development and Smart Cities in India. The objective of the program is to develop and apply concepts for sustainable urban development about 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 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, Government of India and Dr Martin Ney, the German Ambassador to India.
The agreement was signed by Rajiv Ranjan Mishra, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs and Annette Röckel, Deputy Country Director and Tanja Feldmann, Cluster Coordinator, Sustainable Urban and Industrial Development, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH India.
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, Government of India and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).
The project support to Government of India will seek to achieve the set target of promoting sustainable urban development under the national urban missions/programmes such as Smart Cities Mission, linking with the Sustainable Development Goal No 11 – Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. The German contribution to the project is up to eight million Euros. The project will continue for a duration of three years (until December 2020).
MoHUA and GIZ will jointly work on implementing Government of India’s missions, the optimization 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. Experiences and learnings from previous technical cooperation measures in the area of the provision of housing and sanitation as well as solid waste management will be integrated into the new project.