The Netherlands Government is looking to engage with the Kerala Government through targeted initiatives aimed at sharing its niche technological knowhow and formidable skills of execution in a variety of areas.
Shipping, logistics, inland waterways and agriculture and food processing suggest themselves as automatic choices as areas of collaboration, Ms Marijke A. van Drunen Littel, Consul-General, Kingdom of The Netherlands, told Business Line here.
PORT DEVELOPMENT
She was in Thiruvananthapuram at the invite of the Group of Technology Companies (GTECH) to scout for opportunities of doing business in the small and medium IT industry space. There are two aspects to getting involved in shipping, she explained. The first one is port development.
“The last time we were here, we had discussions with the Chairman of the Cochin Port Trust,” Ms van Drunen Littel said. The Chairman, Cochin Port Trust, along with the Secretary of the Department of Shipping, New Delhi, have followed this up with a visit to the Netherlands.
Discussions are still on, and the guests from Kerala have now been put in touch with Dutch consultants on ways to developing the Cochin Port Trust area.
The Chairman of the port trust is on record having said that there is lots of spare capacity available at Kochi. He had also wanted a consultant to advise him to how best utilise this idle capacity.
INLAND WATERWAYS
“We are also looking at how we can get involved in the inland waterways sector in Kerala. There’s an MoU between the Indian Government and the Netherlands on developing waterways. We’re already working in the Hooghly area,” the Consul-General said.
The ship building industry, which is growing here, is another sector that also can hope to source technological and managerial inputs from the Dutch industry.
“We’ve specialising in moving heavy equipment through water. If we are to think of the depth of the waters, we should also think of the depth of the barges that can navigate them.”
In the context of Kerala, one might have to redesign barges that don’t go deep into the waterway and still can operate.
“We’ve the requisite technology available. Before I came to India, I was in Brazil where we were doing exactly the same thing over the Amazon and other rivers.
SHIP BUILDING
“We’ve been able to design ships that can negotiate the uneven terrain of the river bed that rises and falls along course. We hope to bring that technology here,” the Consul-General said.
Speaking about the need for developing hinterland connectivity, she said that in the Netherlands basically everything comes out into the Rotterdam port.
“From there we put them on to ships, barges and trucks or trains. And it’s a very sophisticated way of doing it. We’re also specialised in developing the inter-modals. That’s something one should be looking to achieve in Cochin port as well.
“How do we go to the hinterland, how do we reach the port from the hinterland. Those are things we’re specialising in, and a number of companies dealing with the job have been put into touch with the Cochin Port.”
MOU WITH KARNATAKA
According to Mr V. Vijay Kumar, Chief Representative, Netherlands Business Support Office, Chennai, an MoU has been signed with the Karnataka Government for putting up a comprehensive agriculture infrastructure and logistics project.
The Karnataka Government had appointed Mahindra Consulting Engineers to do a detailed study on how to improve the entire agri infrastructure in the State.
And Mahindra identified the Netherlands as the best in terms of sourcing requisite technology and efficiency in agro infrastructure and logistics and had in turn approached the consulate.
This led to the signing of the MoU between the Karnataka Government and the Netherlands Government. A team led by he State Agriculture Minister is going to Netherlands on September 20, subsequent to which we would start work on implementation of the project.
“We would like to do the same thing here, if the Kerala Government is interested,” Mr Kumar said.
INTEGRATED PACKAGE
In fact when the Netherlands delegation came to Bangalore, it was very impressed with the way Mahindra Consulting had done the background work.
The delegation could exactly get to know what it wanted to do, how it should go about doing it and start from where.
“If the Kerala Government is able to do such a pre-feasibility study on what it needs to do to improve logistics sector, then we can step in,” he added.
But, according to Ms van Drunen Littel, Kerala should look at developing the project in an integrated manner.
“This should provide for good ports, good infrastructure and supply and delivery mechanism, including cold chain and reefers etc., packaging the consignment and delivering them on time on ships/trains/trucks that are able to travel at the right speed to deliver at the right places…,” the Consul-General said.
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