The Indian growth has not only created opportunities for Indians but has also attracted people from across the globe. To get a share of the growth, Dutch minister of infrastructure and environment Melanie Schultz van Haegen, during an official visit to India, told Mihir Mishra that her country was looking at taking part in building Indian airports and shipping infrastructure and intelligent transport system. Edited excerpts:
What kind of cooperation can India expect from your country?
A new government came to power in the Netherlands in October last year. India is very high on our agenda. I have come now and our agriculture minister will come in June. India is seeing a huge growth and we can be helpful in building airports, strengthening air traffic control systems, developing inland waterways and intelligent transport system.
What kind of help can you provide in the aviation sector?
India is planning to have 400 airports in the next 10 years compared to 85 now. We have a lot to offer. There are a lot of Dutch companies that can offer solutions to their counterparts here. The problems with the air traffic management happens when you try to grow that fast. We have a lot of companies providing air traffic management service and we see some knowledge exchange happening there.
What opportunities do you see in shipping?
India plans to dredge its rivers for inland transport for better possibilities and the country can really benefit from using waterways. Our experience shows that it is cheaper and also sustainable. As you know, we are 5-6 metres below sea level and we have created our land in the past years. We have the longest chain of inland waterways, which play a big role in our transport. That experience will be of help in tapping the big opportunity here.
In ship building, what kind of assistance can India get from your country. Is there an opportunity for you?
Since we have a large coast and inland shipping network, we have a lot of expertise on sea shipping. We can help in providing the best way to make ships and vessels to be used for inland transport.
When it comes to road transport, what kind of intelligent transport system (ITS) can we get from your country?
We are a small but a very crowded country. India too is very crowded. Your transport is ever growing. When it is growing, especially with these Tata (Nano) cars, and also adding infrastructure at the same time, it is very important that intelligent transport system is installed when infrastructure is being built. Installing them at a later stage will lead to lot of problems.
Too much traffic is bad for the economic situation. ITS is very interesting for us and can be the same for you. Instead of waiting for the cars to be made compatible to that technology, it should be installed now and the cars can be developed later.
What would be the cost factor?
We think in terms of benefit of it. Traffic jams in our country caused loses of $3 billion per year. It is not that much for India but time gained by avoiding traffic snarls will be beneficial for the economy.
Apart from infrastrucure, which other sectors can you offer solution for India?
I met a large number of corporates in India. And on my question to what else can we offer, apart from infrastructure and logistics? The unanimous answer was on help in processing food.
How can you help India on that?
We have a lot of experience in quick processing. For example, we have big flower auctioneers in the country. We have brought down the processing time of our flowers drastically keeping the flowers fresh for a longer period of time. Pharmaceuticals should also be handled with great care and there also we can leverage our experience.
