Maharashtra Inks Agreement With Netherlands' PM for Cooperation in Water Management, Land Reclamation

Mumbai: Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Netherlands' Prime Minister Mark Rutte for cooperation in water management and land reclamation in Mumbai.

"We have signed an MoU in which they will be helping us in creating a coastal road. It is not only a coastal road but it will be an integrated project with probably a metro and a Marina. Working with nature is the theme and this is where the Dutch government is helping us. They have expertise in water management and land reclamation. We wanted their expertise to be transferred to Mumbai to develop better infrastructure," said Mr Fadnavis.

"The road that exists today, The Queen's Necklace, is built on reclaimed land. When the seven islands were integrated through land reclamation and Mumbai came into being, the reclamation was done by the Dutch. So this is just history repeating itself. We may have issues with reclamation but their expertise is about environment friendly reclamation, reclamation with nature and this is what we are trying to learn," added Mr Fadnavis.

On the issue of water pollution in Mumbai and solution the Dutch could provide through the signing of the MoU, the Dutch PM told NDTV, "I met PM Modi and we discussed his flagship projects like "Clean India" and cleaning the Ganga. The Rhine River in The Netherlands which is a delta was a sewer system 30 years ago. It was very polluted. Now we see very rare fishes and the river is clean. It has taken us time and the latest technology to get it going and we want to make that available to Mumbai and India."

"We will take their help for water management in Mumbai and address the issue of water from the sewer from going directly into the sea," said Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.

The Dutch PM is on a two-day visit to India. He flew to Mumbai today after attending bilateral meetings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi.