The smart city lab that the German Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB to come up Coimbatore is an important contribution to the Indo-German collaboration, German Ambassador to India Martin Ney said here on Monday.
Speaking at the multi-stakeholder interaction organised as part of the Indo-Germany Cooperation in Smart Cities by the Coimbatore Corporation and Fraunhofer, he said the lab was a fallout of the 2015 strategic partnership agreement signed between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
One of the focus areas of the partnership was collaboration with Indian cities to develop sustainable urban places. In this regard, German agencies and companies worked with three Indian cities - Kochi in integrated water transport, Bhubaneswar in solid waste management and Coimbatore in water management and mobility improvement.
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German expertise in developing smart cities would be of great help as Indian cities faced challenges that German cities faced over 40 years ago.
Fraunhofer India’s Director Anandi Iyer said the organisation would partner with the Coimbatore Corporation in studying the city’s problems, collecting data in a scientific manner and suggesting solutions.
It was in the process of developing a concept for sustainable water management for a smart Coimbatore and that included waste water disposal as well.
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Corporation Commissioner K. Vijayakarthikeyan spoke about various projects that the civic body was implementing under the Smart Cities programme and what stages of implementation they were.
He welcomed the smart city lab saying that inputs in urban mobility management and sharing of expertise would greatly help the city that was looking at having a mass transit project in the near future.