Germany to finance Mumbai Metro project under Indo-German partnership

New Delhi, India (Urban Transport News): A team of German delegation led by Prof. Dr. Claudia Warning, DG-Development Cooperation Worldwide-Country Programmes were in a two-day visit to India. In the India-Germany sector dialogue on Sustainable Urban Development and Green Urban Mobility Partnership, Claudia Warning said that Germany will be taking part in the funding of the Mumbai Metro project which is going to be erected very soon.

A senior official of the Ministry of Economic Cooperation, Government of Germany on Wednesday said that India and Germany will collaborate on Mumbai Metro and solar energy projects as part of bilateral cooperation in energy and urban development sectors. Talking to media personnel, Claudia Warning, Director General (Bilateral Cooperation) of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development said:

Government-to-government negotiations were held on Wednesday and it was decided that 25 concrete projects related to energy cooperation and urban development would be carried out between the two countries.

"Germany has pledged an amount of 1.6 billion euros for projects in energy and energy efficiency and in natural resource management as well as in urban development and urban re-motorisation," she added. India & Germany have been strategic partners & have strong bilateral relations in all sectors of sustainable urban development. The relations between the two countries were further strengthened with the signing of three Joint Declarations of Intents on November 1, 2019, in the presence of Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Angela was on a two-day visit to India for the 5th Indo-German Inter-Governmental Consultations to strengthen bilateral ties. During her visit to India, seventeen agreements were signed between India and Germany in the fields of Urban Mobility, Agriculture, Maritime technology, Ayurveda and Yoga among others. "We decided on concrete 25 projects in concrete areas where we would like to work together which is about working together for the next 3-5 years", Claudia said. "One example is that we will be taking part in the Metro of Mumbai which is going to be erected very soon so we are going to finance this. We are also going to finance solar water plants for the agriculture centre.

We are going to finance soil knowledge centre which is very important for small scale farmers," she added. "In today’s meeting, we discussed several issues & structure of future collaboration in Green Urban Mobility utilising 1 billion Euro soft loan committed through the recently signed JDI", Durga Shankar Mishra, Secretary, Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs, Govt. of India.