India’s Minister of Road Transport & Highways and Shipping Nitin Gadkari has said that India and Germany are set to collaborate on projects for improving rail connectivity of Indian ports. He said the two countries will work together on projects being implemented by the Indian Port Rail Corporation Ltd (IPRCL).

The minister held detailed discussions with his German counterpart and Infrastructure Minister Alexander Dobrindt and his delegation in New Delhi earlier this month, regarding the modalities for such collaboration. Secretary of Shipping Rajive Kumar and Secretary for Road Transport & Highways Sanjay Mitra and other senior officers of the two ministries were also present.

The meeting came under the backdrop of a memorandum of understanding signed between the Indian Port Rail Corporation Ltd (IPRCL) and German Railways (Deutsche Bahn—DB) for cooperation on modernization of rail port connectivity and port rail facilities of Indian ports, during the Maritime India Summit earlier this year . For efficient evacuation of cargo from the ports and to reduce logistics cost, last mile rail connectivity of ports is extremely important. Indian port Rail Corporation Ltd. has been set up specifically to work in this area.

IPRCL and DB will form groups to identify areas of cooperation and potential projects, and also to identify cost effective new rail technologies that can be implemented. This would help bring in foreign investment and cost effective, environment friendly, innovative technology for the port rail connectivity projects.

Gadkari also that Germany has also been invited to cooperate in the development of inland waterways, including manufacturing of barges.

Discussions were also held on cooperation for developing vehicle scrapping capacity in India. India has invited Germany to share environment friendly technology for scrapping of old vehicles and also for processing of the waste generated.

Gadkari informed the German minister that India has put in place regulations for the use of flex-fuel like ethanol mixed with gasoline. He said German automobile manufacturers can be called upon to produce cars that can run on flex-fuel for India, like the ones being produced in Canada and the United States.