India is experiencing large scale urbanization and its efforts can be enriched through city to city cooperation as facilitated by the EuroIndia Forum 2008, said Ajay Shankar, Secretary, department of Industrial Policy and promotion, Ministry of commerce and Industry at the concluding session of the forum organized jointly by the Confederation of Indian Industry and the EuroIndia Centre in New Delhi Today. Three Indian and three European cities formalized city to city partnerships during the course of the second EuroIndia Forum titled ‘Urban India 2020: The New Frontier’ held in Goa on April 3-5, 2008. the forum focused on creating efficient and sustainable cities in India through exploring the avenues of partnership with European cities in the field of urban development.

One of the concrete outcomes of the Forum was an MoU between the city of La Rochelle France and Ahmedabad to cooperate in the area of Heritage management and energy conservation. City of Halle, Germany, participating as Partner City at the Forum offered to host management students from Ahmedabad and Indore for six month educational programmes. Valladolid, Spain, was keen to develop a partnership with Ahmedabad for heritage management and with Pune in the automobile sector.

As Indian cities are urbanizing, there is enormous potential in the areas such as technology, green and energy efficient building, management of water and waste and good governance in which European cities have done pioneering work, Shankar said and added that this offered great scope for building linkages between Indian and European cities.

Proper and planned urbanization was a key challenge for India in today’s globalizing environment. The EuroIndia Frum 2008 has laid a foundation for a more enriched relationship between Europe and India through it’s city to city programme and its focus on key aspects such as Knowledge, Investment, Tourism and Empowerment, said Dr Harjit S Anand, Secretary, Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation.

The EuroIndia Forum has proved to be a great platform for city to city contact for various aspects of urban planning and must now be made more focused, said M Ramachandran, secretary, Ministry of Urban development. The CII, which is co-partnering this entire effort, must facilitate the process of bringing together business communities from these cities as well. The best practices from Europe need to be shared to make Indian cities more livable, he said.

The EuroIndia Forum 2008 has always focused on helping cities offer a better life to its citizen, said Colette Mathur, Co-President, the EuroIndia Centre, and said that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Chairman Emeritus, EuroIndia Centre, has expressed his full support to the activities of the forum. The purpose of the forum was to bring Europe and India, which have shared a great relation over their long history, back together by means pertinent to both sides, said Michel Sabatier, Secretary General, EuroIndia Centre.

Dagmar Szabados, Lord Mayor of Halle, Germany, said Halle represented best practices in urban planning in Germany and invited Indian experts to a sustainable round table on the subject which she planned to organize in the city later this year.

Colette Chaigneau, Deputy Mayor, city of La Rochelle, said the forum could identify and work on projects that are mutually beneficial, long term and sustainable.

The forum was an opportunity for a very fruitful dialogue between cities of India and Europe, said Francisco Javier Leon de la Riva, Mayor of Valladolid and invited delegations of Indian municipalities to visit European cities to explore multi-lateral cooperation.

The session was followed by presentations by the three European cities exploring partnership opportunities in the field of tourism.