“So it is business-to-business and also government-to-government. It is held every six months. It is chaired by the state secretary of commerce, and he brings in all the Indian players, and the different ministries which are involved - in order to solve it,” Mr Lindner said. He added that when he attended one such meeting, there were six topics. “Three were solved, two were put on hold for next time, and one - we said it is too difficult, and will take five years. So, at least, the company knows.”

Germany is also deeply involved in working in the development sector in India through the Deutsche Gesellschaft Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. German development cooperation participation in India in the last 20 years stood at 16 billion euros, mostly in the areas of renewable energy, sustainable urban development or smart cities—that involve dealing with plastic, transport as well as environment and resource protection.

Giving the example of the Rhine in Germany, Ambassador Lindner said that 25 years ago the river was “a disaster” due to severe pollution. Germany is now working with India to improve the quality of the Ganga river, on tackling industrial effluents.
“If you go to Dehradun or Rishikesh, the Ganga is pretty clean. But after that the industrial waste influx comes in. So, what we do is, we help through credits and technical assistance, the local administration there to organise waste water management. The German Government is putting quite some money into this,” he added. The German Government is into negotiations to extend the Ganga project beyond Dehradun and Rishikesh, to Lucknow and Varanasi where it is more polluted. Germany is involved in 300 development projects in India. In 2018, 781 million euros was earmarked for such projects in India.