EU & India to Fund €40mn for 7 Projects To Tackle Water Challenges

Seven projects have been selected under the EU — India Joint Call on Research and Innovation for Water, to develop new or adapt existing solutions for Indian conditions, both in urban and rural areas, providing some key solutions to the urgent water challenges.

The EU, through its research and innovation programme ‘Horizon 2020’ and the Government of India (DST and DBT) will invest a total of up to EUR 40 million (INR 323 crores) on seven projects, which have an average duration of 4 years.

The Delegation of the European Union to India, the Department of Science & Technology and the Department of Biotechnology presented the seven projects that have been selected earlier this month.

In total, 130 entities will be part of these seven projects, ranging from universities, research labs, private sector and municipalities. Amongst others, IIT Bombay, IIT Guwahati, IIT Bhubaneswar, IIT Roorkee, IIT Delhi, CSIR-National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (CSIR-NEERI) and TERI are some of the institutes that will be collaborating in these projects with leading universities and institutes from Europe. European and Indian businesses and SMEs are also participating to test the manufacturing of water treatment technologies and systems.

The key focus areas of these projects are: improving the quality of drinking water, waste water management and real time monitoring and control systems are, which have been selected through a competitive peer-reviewed process.

The seven selected projects are:

• India-H20: bio-mimetic and phyto-technologies designed for low-cost purification and recycling of water.
• LOTUS: Low-cost innovative technology for water quality monitoring and water resources management for urban and rural water systems in India.
• PANI WATER: Photo-irradiation and adsorption based novel innovations for water-treatment.
• PAVITR: Potential and validation of sustainable natural & advance technologies for water & wastewater treatment, monitoring and safe water reuse in India.
• PAVITRA GANGA: Unlocking wastewater treatment, water re-use and resource recovery opportunities for urban and peri-urban areas in India.
• SAEASWATI 2.0: Identifying best available technologies for decentralised wastewater treatment and resource recovery for India.
• SPRING: Strategic planning for water resources and implementation of novel bio-technical treatment solutions and good practices.

“Many of these water challenges are common to India and the EU. India and Europe have, in the past, collaborated intensively on water, enriching each other’s technological and scientific knowledge and management capacities to cope with stress on water resources. The selected research and innovation projects will/or aim at further addressing these key water issues together with India and in doing so, will contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals to which both Europe and India are committed,” said Tomasz Kozlowski, Ambassador of the European Union to India.

“Uneven distribution of water resources triggered by climate change, extreme water-related events (floods and droughts) and increasing demand due to population growth and economic development, as well as water pollution add additional stress to water, the environment and food security,” read a communiqué from the European Commission.

Besides supporting India’s Ganga Rejuvenation initiative, the projects will also support transfer of European technologies to India, which would require them to be tested, demonstrated, and customised to suit Indian needs at an affordable cost. The cooperation will also lead to increased scientific excellence while ensuring that at the end of the project, the technology can be deployed and be of benefit to the entire Indian population.

“It was thus logical, taking into account European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, Carlos Moedas’ commitment to further encourage international, open-to-the-world activities under the EU’s Research & Innovation programme ‘Horizon 2020’, that water became a priority area for cooperation between Europe and India,” read the communiqué.

Prior to the launch event, the India-European Water Partnership (IEWP) met on 13 February 2019 to ensure synergy on the policy dialogue between India and the EU on water and how research and innovation efforts could facilitate the implementation of the issues identified.

In 2016, India and the EU launched a Water Partnership to strengthen cooperation on water between the EU and India. Priorities of the partnership include the sustainable development of river basins, water governance, data management (water accounting), groundwater use, and water use in irrigation, including solar pumping. The partnership aims to enable the exchange of views on regulatory approaches, including procurement, governance, best practices, business solutions, and research and innovation. To this end, the partnership facilitates technical exchanges through study visits on water issues and in the organisation of the Indo-European Water Forum.

Under the EU Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (FP7), Indians participated in 9 collaborative research projects representing in total about EUR 82 million funded by the EU. In addition, a coordinated call was organised with Government of India (DST and DBT) in which India and EU funded 5 projects (NAWATECH, SARASWATI, SWINGS, ECO-INDIA and WATER4INDIA) to the tune of EUR 44 million. Cooperation through these projects has allowed development of appropriate waste water treatment systems, recycling and reuse strategies as well as water reclamation in various part of India. This cooperation has also strengthened the research capacity on water while supporting deployment of technologies. The EU Member States individually or through the FP7 INNO INDIGO project, have also selected water as a topic for cooperation.

4th India-EU Water Forum

Six Expressions of Intent and Memorandum of Understandings were exchanged between the India-EU Water Partnership (IEWP) and several European Member States, international organisations as well as an Indian institution at the 4th EU India Water Forum (IWF), which was hosted by the IEWP and TERI as part of the World Sustainable Development Summit, New Delhi.

The documents were exchanged between the IEWP and Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, IIT Kanpur/cGanga/VITO and Vlakwa/WssTP, Water Resources Group 2030 as well as between GIZ and IHE Delft, Netherlands.

The forum was inaugurated by Arjun Ram Meghwal, Minister of State Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation (MoWR, RD & GR), Government of India. High level officials from India and the European Union (EU), water experts and researchers were also present.

The three IEWF sessions reflected on key water management challenges and demonstrated that functioning water resources management demands a combination of good governance and coordination, implementation will as well as appropriate strategies, technical approaches, research and innovative technologies.

The IEWP is an outcome of the ‘Joint Declaration on Water’ adopted by India and EU on 30 March 2016 during the 13th EU-India Summit in Brussels, to enhance cooperation on water issues including supporting the ‘Clean Ganga’ programme of the Government of India. At present, the IEWP is co-financed by the European Union (EU) and the German Cooperation, and aims to develop an integrated and holistic River Basin Management Plan for the Tapi Basin blending the technical expertise of India and EU Member States as well as bringing together all three Indian States that share the basin.

“The joint efforts and implementation activities within the IEWP input into the Indian water policy strengthening our activities to improve our water resources management and to clean our rivers to contribute to sustainable socio-economics in India,” said Akhil Kumar, Joint Secretary of MoWR, RD & GR, who is strongly involved in the IEWP.

Water is a critical area for cooperation between the EU and India and its member states. The last two EU India summits and the recently announced EU’s strategy on India spell out both the challenges and opportunities in this sector.

“We are working closely with India on nine identified priority areas in the water management sector. With the added expertise and support by the member states, institutions and the businesses, we hope to further step up this collaboration,” said Raimund Magis, Chargé d’Affaires a.i., Delegation of the European Union to India.

“The European Union and its Member States have developed 168 River Basin Management Plans during the last 20 years to improve the water quality of all European rivers. The EU is highly ambitious to bring in technical expertise of the EU Member States and add value to ongoing effort to rejuvenate Indian rivers,” said Henriette Faergemann, First Counsellor of the European Delegation to India.

“We can only be successful in cleaning and managing our water resources if we cooperate with our neighbouring States towards joint aims and if we accept that this needs time. Rivers cannot become clean from one day to another, it needs years,” said Wolfram Klein from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The IEWP tackles a set of topics as part of priority areas including River Basin Management, assessment of environmental flows, the development of a water quality dashboard for targeted decision making, groundwater management, irrigation efficiency and reuse of treated wastewater. Research and the introduction of innovative technologies also fall in the ambit of the programme.