There is a huge potential for universities of both countries to work together: JICA Chief Representative

116 grantees for scholarship, 271 faculty members exchanged between Japan and IITH, 32 MOUs were signed between IITH and Japanese academic institutions and 15 MOUs signed between IITH and Japanese industries.

Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the Japanese governmental agency which provides assistance in forms of loan, grant and technical cooperation to the emerging countries, has provided loans for establishment of Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad, has helped in creating facilities at Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU). SAITO Mitsunori, Chief Representative, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) India talks about how JICA is working on various higher education projects in India including improving collaboration between universities of two Asian nations and how it is going to support India’s renewable energy sector.

Q. I would like to understand JICA’s role in improving collaboration between Indian and Japanese universities.

A. JICA’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) has been implemented under the vision of ‘Leading the world with trust’.

JICA’s activities in India is the largest in the world, which implicates the importance of the bounds of trust between Japan and India. Though the amount of fund extended to Infrastructure projects is larger, I believe human exchange is the direct contributor to enhance the good relationship. Collaboration between universities of both countries will serve as the best medium to achieve this.

I believe there is a huge potential for universities of both countries to work together in tackling the variety of global challenges and JICA’s activities can be utilized for introducing each other. For example, JICA invited an eminent Japanese professor to conduct a seminar on "Aging Society, Social Systems and Care for the Elderly: Implications from the Experience of Japan" at IIT Hyderabad (IITH) last February.

Q. JICA is also working with some institutions in India like IIT Hyderabad. Kindly elaborate on that as well as on how JICA is supporting education and research in India.

A. JICA's cooperation with IITH is one of the most successful examples of its holistic programmatic approach. The cooperation was based on the commitment between the Prime Ministers of the two countries in 2007. Since then, JICA has been cooperating with IITH by providing comprehensive assistance in research and development, human resource development and improvements in infrastructure through various projects including ODA loan, technical cooperation projects, joint research projects and public-private partnership projects.

The ODA loans for the projects named "Campus Development Project of Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad" phase 1 and 2, were concluded between JICA and the Government of India on January 28, 2014, with total loan amount of JPY 23,035 million (approximately INR 1,536 crore). The project aims to help in upgrading IITH's education and research environment by constructing campus buildings and providing high-end research equipment. The construction includes 19 types of buildings, out of which, six buildings were designed by the Japanese design team through JICA's technical cooperation project to symbolise the partnership between India and Japan.

The technical cooperation project named Project for Future Researchers at IITH to Enhance Network Development with Scholarship of Japan (FRIENDSHIP)” phase 1 and 2 has been implemented since 2012. Japanese experts have implemented this project to enhance the research network between IITH and first-rate higher education institutions/industrial clusters of Japan through the interaction of human resource in educational and research activities.

Through the phase 1 project, several quantitative achievements were observed. These include 116 grantees for scholarship, 271 faculty members exchanged between Japan and IITH, 32 MOUs were signed between IITH and Japanese academic institutions and 15 MOUs signed between IITH and Japanese industries. While these are a few examples of IITH-JICA collaborations, I believe it will be further enhanced with the construction of campus buildings, which is expected to be completed in coming months.

Q. Kindly tell us about the status of JICA’s current projects in India and their significant achievements as well as JICA’s strategy for promoting clean energy in the country.

A. A strong and reliable energy infrastructure is essential for an economy to grow steadily. JICA has been supporting India’s energy projects since a long time, including the installation of 12.9 GW energy capacity, with 8.1 GW in the renewable sector. The agency's support on projects for modernization of transmission and distribution lines has also promoted energy efficiency in the country. JICA has supported transmission and distribution projects in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Meghalaya, Odisha, and Uttarakhand.

Access to stable energy is the fundamental of people’s living and industries and the role of India is extremely important for decarbonization of the world. JICA will support various sectors to support India’s initiative towards stable energy access and decarbonization with all available schemes including Policy Lending, Two Step Loan, Project Loan, Technical Cooperation (including Capacity Building and Policy Advocacy) and PSIF (Private Sector Investment Finance).

Q. I would like to understand the current total exposure of JICA in India in terms of funding and its future plans for India.

A. Japan has committed over 7,300 billion Japanese Yen (approximately equivalent of 4,48,000 crore Rupees) for development across sectors in India, since the 1950s. In the future, JICA is going to look into renewable energy to support India’s initiative to supply electricity to the vulnerable segment of the society and achieve net-zero emissions by 2070. The private sector is another area where JICA is increasing its cooperation. By funding infrastructure projects in the private sector, JICA could facilitate development of the country without increasing the debt level of the government. Currently, JICA’s investments projects focus on social impact, enabling financial inclusion, women empowerment, or affordable housing.

Q. Status of JICA projects in North-East India, are there some related to education? What are the other planned future engagements in the region?

A. We understand that Northeast India is yet to realize its fullest economic potential, and the leading cause is the lack of connectivity. On Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s recent visit to India, he highlighted the importance of connectivity for ensuring political stability and economic growth in his policy speech titled “New Plan for a ‘Free and Open Indo-Pacific’.” He specifically referred to Northeast India and shared the view of promoting the Bay of Bengal-Northeast India industrial value chain concept.

We do not have any projects in ‘education sector,’ but offer many trainings for government officials as part of our technical cooperation scheme. In May, two officials from Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh, will visit Japan to learn about the country’s maintenance technology as part of a two-week training course on maintenance of mountainous roads.

Read more:

• Central Universities need to deactivate their recruitment portal, provide link for ‘CU Chayan’ portal: UGC

• AICTE launches fellowship Program to Combat Climate Change