NEW DELHI : Britain is looking for massive opportunities of investment and technological cooperation in the development of smart cities, the Government’s mega project and the issue would be in focus when Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits Britain this November.
According to diplomatic sources, UK is all set to help India to develop these cities with its expertise in sewage treatment, waste disposal, drainage, green transport and energy efficiency etc. Several agreements in these areas were expected to be signed in these areas during Mr Modi’s visit.
The Centre has declared the name of 98 cities this week which would be developed as smart cities.The list includes 24 business and industrial centres, 24 capitals, 18 cultural and tourism cities, five port cities, 64 small and medium category cities.
Apart from the Mr Modi’s constituency Varanasi, the list includes Lucknow, Allahabad, Agra, Chennai, Coimbatore, Ahmedabad,Tiruchirapalli, Thanjavur, Vellore, Nashik, Thane, Solapur, Nagpur, Navi Mumbai, Aurangabad, Pune, Bhopal, Indore, Gwalior etc.
”Many of the cities, especially those situated on the sea coasts can get green energy through tidal wave, wind and those with abundance of the sun throughout the year could tap solar energy and in all these areas UK has something big to offer to India,” the sources said.
UK is the third largest inward investor in India, after Mauritius and Singapore with a cumulative equity investment of 22.26 billion dollars (April 2000- May2015).
UK ranks first among the G20 countries and accounts for around nine per cent of all foreign direct investment into India for the period April 2000 May 2015.
Mr Modi had his first meeting with his UK counterpart David Cameron on the side-lines of G20 Summit held in Australia in November 2014 and conveyed to him that ”relations with India are at the top of the priorities of the UK?s foreign policy.”
The Prime Minister during his visit will address a large gathering of about 70,000 in the Wembley stadium. UK has the largest ethnic community with a large number of them from Gujarat.
Mr Modi was expected to visit London to inaugurate the Mahatma Gandhi statue at Britain’s parliament square earlier this year, but deferred his plan as Mr Cameron was facing elections in May. Senior minister in the cabinet Arun Jaitley therefore filled in and inaugurated the state with Mr Cameron.
A business delegation visited Britain last month to explore further areas of economic cooperation between the two countries.
Also last month, British MP Alok Sharma, who originally hails from Agra district of Uttar Pradesh, visited India and during his week’s stay here met Mr Jaitley, Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister Nripendra Misra, besides investors,industrialists and senior government officials.
”The major theme of the discussions was how do we push the economic agenda between India and the UK,” he said.
This will be the first visit of the PM to UK, a country which had boycotted him diplomatically for 10 years in the wake of 2002 Gujarat riots.
However, Mr Cameron was the first to congratulate him on his victory. In a strong indication of the change in the attitude of his government towards Mr Modi, Mr Cameron has said,” In the last 12 months, there have been significant development in the legal process, following the 2002 Gujarat riots, including conviction in a number high profile cases.
We believe that closer engagement with Gujarat, including Mr Modi, was the best way to achieve our wide-ranging objectives there- including on human rights…” It would be after 10 years that any Indian Prime Minister will be visiting the UK, the last one being Manmohan Singh. (AGENCIES)
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