EU to continue aid for City projects

BHUBANESWAR:The European Union (EU) on Tuesday assured of continuing its technical assistance for designing rooftop solar replication in residential sector, setting up a unified metropolitan transport authority and promoting e-vehicles in the City.

Addressing mediapersons, Ambassador of European Union to India Tomasz Kozlowski said the EU, which has funded the Eco-Cities project implemented by International Finance Corporation (IFC), is working closely with BDA, Odisha Renewable Energy Development Agency and the State Pollution Control Board.
The Eco-Cities project is being implemented in five cities of the country to support climate smart municipal services including e-waste management.

“Funding support is being provided to undertake Public-Private-Partnership transactions for street lighting, rooftop solar plants in Government buildings and low income housing in Bhubaneswar besides the Odisha solar park,” Kozlowski said.

The EU has been involved in a number of development programmes in Odisha as part of the ever growing EU support and cooperation for India’s sustainable modernisation. “About 150 sustainable household energy schools have been established in 93 project villages having membership of around 3500 women. This project is being implemented by Care India,” he said.

The EU has been strengthening the capacity of local administration to address the fluorosis issue in Balasore district under ‘Leveraging the Water Quality Networks’ project for effectively connecting the needs of vulnerable and affected rural population to the national water quality mission.

Speaking on the Erasmus programme, the EU Ambassador said several students from NIT, OUAT, BPUT, Utkal University, North Orissa University and KIIT as well as researchers from Odisha have so far benefited from the EU-funded programmes.

“Three projects for capacity building in higher education have been awarded to universities. One of the projects, on enhancing female entrepreneurship in India, will be coordinated by KIIT for the second time,” he said. 

Data privacy

The EU has recently approved its new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to protect privacy in data flows. India is also working hard now to adopt regulations for data privacy and protection, the EU Ambassador said. “We are discussing the issue of data adequacy status. The EU and Indian companies are in the process of finding ways to send data from Europe to India in the framework of regulatory mechanism,” he added.