The Clean Ganga Europe Desk conference concluded on the 27th of September at the BluePoint Center in Brussels attracted key representatives from European and Indian water organisations.
During the one-day programme, participants had the opportunity to gain interesting insights on ‘EU-India Policy perspectives and Opportunities’ and get updated on investment initiatives and testimonial projects. The matchmaking session during the conference gave participants great networking opportunities and the chance to build a solid ground for successful future partnerships between the EU & India.
The key take-away messages of the main conference’s sessions are:
🔹 The European and Indian water sector have many similarities (subsidiarity, comparable size of rivers e.g. Ganga and Danube).
🔸Τhe EU has already established a successful collaboration mechanism with India.
🔹 There are great opportunities awaiting but there is need to shift to practical actions, improving the coordination among all actors.
🔸 It is necessary to break the paradigm from linear to circular economy.
🔹 There is a lot of ambition from the political side to clean the Ganga Basin, and European companies organisations and institutions can be real actors and part of the solution.
🔸 “Money is not a problem….” it is the right time to invest, certainly for industrial projects, and there are opportunities for public tenders at the state level and for industrial projects.
🔹 Water developments in India should ensure and encourage the inflow of international capital.
🔸Testing technologies and solutions in living labs in different states is important to make sure that solutions can work in India.
🔹It is important to develop the right business models to make the projects profitable in a policy-driven market.
Special emphasis to the importance of straightforward communication and action was given by HE Ms Gaitri Issar Kumar, Ambassador of India to the European Union who addressed an open invitation to European and Indian stakeholders to be in direct contact with the embassy when there is a need for assistance in solving practical problems.
Fuente: WSSTP