Germany to develop Bhubaneswar, Kochi, Coimbatore as Smart Cities

Germany has decided to partner with India’s smart city programme and will help developing Kochi (Kerala), Bhubaneswar (Odisha) and Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu) as smart cities.
It was announced by State Secretary in Germany’s Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety, Gunther Adler in New Delhi at the second meeting of the Indo-German Working Group on Urban Development.
These three cities are among the top 20 cities selected by Urban Development Ministry which are to be developed as smart cities.
This decision was taken after Union Government had invited Germany to be a partner in its Smart Cities programme in 2015. Earlier Germany had set up a six-member joint committee with India to identify the cities which it could develop as smart cities.
The joint committee had 2 representatives of Union Urban Development Ministry, 1 from the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, and 3 from Germany.
It should be noted that Germany is India’s second largest bilateral donor after Japan with a record commitment of 1.5 billion Euros agreed in the year 2015.

Month: Current Affairs - March, 2016