A five-member team led by the Netherlands Ambassador to India Marten van den Berg visited Kuttanad on Monday. The team visited project sites of the Irrigation Department in the region.
District Collector Adeela Abdulla and Suresh Kumar S., Chief Engineer, Inland Navigation and Kuttanad Package, who accompanied the team, discussed with them the ongoing post-flood rehabilitation work.
The ambassador will hold further discussions with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Water Resources Minister K. Krishnankutty in Thiruvananthapuram on Tuesday.
Earlier, during a visit to the Netherlands in May 2019, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has sought the help of the Dutch government in implementing flood mitigation measures especially in Kuttanad.
Following this, an expert team from the Netherlands visited Kuttanad and submitted a report to the State government.
Soon after his visit to Netherlands, the Chief Minister announced that ‘Room for the River’ model adopted at Noordwaard in the Netherlands to tackle flooding and ensure the safety of local people would be incorporated in the Rebuild Kerala initiative.
He said that the project, aimed at giving the river more room and thus managing water level during floods, could be replicated in low-lying Kuttanad and Alappuzha.
