French companies have come forward to join hands with the state
government to solve the challenges of urban transport, water and waste
management that bedevil Bangalore.

A delegation of 17 chief
executives of top French companies, led by French ambassador to India,
Francois Richier, and Special Representative for Economic Relations with
India, Paul Hermelin, met Chief Secretary Kaushik Mukherjee and Chief
Minister Siddaramaiah to discuss potential areas for cooperation.

“By
this summer, we can expect some outcome from this visit. French
companies will offer solutions to challenges on urban transportation
system, environment (waste and water) system and overall integrated
systems,” Hermelin told a press conference here on Thursday.

“We
are here to give our solutions as we have learnt from our mistakes in
planning our cities in the 1960s and 1970s. We don’t want Bangalore to
make the same mistakes while expanding,” he said, while stressing the
need for satellite cities around Bangalore. Companies such as Alstom
Transport, Suez (environment and transport) and Veolia are expected to
play important roles in some of these projects in the pipeline, Hermelin
said.

“Our meeting with the chief secretary was interesting as we
discussed the requirement and allocation of land for the
Mumbai-Bangalore corridor and a possible corridor between Bangalore and
Mysore,” he said. Mukherjee told the delegation that there is a need to
solve the traffic bottlenecks en route Mysore. “He presented the
problem. France is known for high-speed rail links, so our companies
will give an appropriate solution,” Hermelin said.

Projects for
Bangalore will also find financial support from the Agence Française de
Développement, a French public finance institution.

On Wednesday,
Ambassador Richier and Hermelin met Governor H R Bhardwaj and visited
the Indian Institute of Science, where an Indo-French Cell of Water
Sciences has been functioning since 2001.

On Thursday, the delegation met ISRO chairperson K Radhakrishnan to exchange views.