The Hindu       21.07.2016 

Germany ready to fund projects in Coimbatore

Germany is ready to fund development projects in Coimbatore, said the country’s Ambassador Martin Ney on Wednesday.

Addressing reporters after meeting Mayor P. Rajkumar and Corporation Commissioner K. Vijayakarthikeyan here, Mr. Ney said that said if the Corporation forwarded proposals for the projects it planned to start this October, Germany would be willing to consider extending financial support.

The Corporation could, therefore, approach the Central Government so that it was brought on table during the inter-government negotiations.

The Ambassador, who led a 10-member delegation, said that he had met Chief Minister Jayalalithaa. And he was in Coimbatore, one of the three Smart Cities that Germany was collaborating with. The other two were Bhubaneswar and Kochi.

Mr. Ney said that Germany and Tamil Nadu had strong links as in the past seven years his country had granted three loans worth Euro 265 mn to fund 30 urban development projects. Of those, a few had been implemented in Coimbatore as well.

Germany had also given Euro 76 million to the Tamil Nadu Transmission Corporation under green energy cooperation.

As for helping Coimbatore in the Smart Cities project, he said that Germany had expertise in smart and intelligent transport and waste water management. The German expertise went back to 1972 when the country was preparing for the Munich Olympics. It took the transport underground and cleaned its rivers, including Rhine. During his interaction with Mr. Karthikeyan, there was a mention of developing smart and intelligent transport in the city. German companies had also developed technical expertise in those areas.

Members of the Germany Embassy in New Delhi, funding agency KfW, Bosch, German Water Partnership, Siemens, TUV SUD South Asia and Fraunhofer Office, India, were also present.