EU to spend Rs 19 crore on Himalayan project

The European Union (EU) has earmarked Euro 3 million (about Rs 19.5 crore) for a project to assess the impact of Himalayan glaciers retreat and changing monsoon patterns in India. Institutions like The Energy Research Institute, IIT Delhi and Kharagpur and those from Netherlands, UK and Switzerland and Japan would be partners in this programme. The project aims to identify and quantify issues related to changing water resources availability and recommend strategies to deal with the situation. The project would be spread over three years.

This was disclosed at a seminar on ‘Energy and Climate Change’ , organised by the EU, here at Hyderabad on Thursday.

According to Robert Donkers, minister counsellor- environment, part of the EU delegation to India, EU was focusing on sustainable economic activity across agriculture, energy, transport and tourism sectors and it had included protection of environment as a component of community policies.

The EU had already prepared strategic papers for waste prevention and recycling. These would benefit countries like India and China, which export bulk and specialty pharmaceuticals and chemicals to the member countries. It would define standards for the importers also to make trade with other countries more transparent.

Anne Marchal, head of development and cooperation wing of the EU delegation, said EU would partner with India in addressing issues related to migration due to climate change.

Besides, it was in dialogue with the Indian regulatory counterparts for information technology and communication, pharma, macro economics, science and technology, energy and employment for giving a shape to the joint action plan to implement strategic partnerships.

EU was working to deepen ties with India by supporting a lot of NGOs working in livelihood and human rights areas.

Regional sector manager Ajay Desai that EU had recently set up European Business and Technology Centre in Delhi to work on projects relating to wind, solar and hydro power and clean coal technologies in a cluster approach involving about 40,000 small and medium enterprises from the EU and India. It was researching on clusters and would prepare a database to facilitate joint ventures. The centre would spend about euro 5.5 million (about Rs 35.7 crore) in phases on various activities.