India, Germany ink deals for cooperation in energy, climate

New Delhi, Feb 2 (PTI) India and German today signedtwo agreements worth over 500 million euros to step upcooperation in energy, environment protection and socialsectors.

"Two umbrella agreements amounting to a total of about500 million euros were signed by German Ambassador ThomasMatussek and Prabodh Saxena, Joint Secretary in the Ministryof Finance," a German embassy statement said here.

"Roughly 95 per cent of the amount consists ofpreferential loans, the rest are grants and the agreementsbring into force the commitments made by the German governmentin the annual Indo-German government negotiations held inNovember 2010 in Bonn," it added.

The agreements focus on projects related to protectingthe environment and addressing concerns on climate change byusing renewable energy and by improving the efficiency ofenergy generation and consumption.

Projects providing advice on adapting to climatechange in north-eastern India and promotingenvironment-friendly urban infrastructure measures are alsoincluded in the agreements, they said.

The two sides also agreed on starting a socialprotection programme for the workers in the unorganisedsector, which will support government efforts to provideaccess to schemes for elderly, health and incapacity insurancefor these workers.

Speaking on the occasion, the German ambassador saidan important concern of Indo-German cooperation was to connectwith India''s efforts to discover model solutions and to trainIndian partners so that they are able to continue theactivities independently and also replicate them.

"Given the size of the country, this is the only wayto achieve sustainable impacts," he added.