Tel Aviv was working closely with Delhi to establish a programme to address different concerns and work together, said Israeli academician Dr Lior Assaf, adding that India has the ability and power to resolve water problems on a large scale.
Dr Assaf was speaking during the Indo-Israel Water Partnership ahead of World Water Day.
"Privileged to talk about a specific relationship between India and Israel in the water sector. We are working very closely with the federal government now and we will soon establish a programme to address the different subjects and work together," Dr Lior Assaf said during a teleconference on Monday.
Assaf, who has an academic background, said that Israel is relatively a small country with only nine million people as compared to India.
In Israel, water is considered a national resource of utmost importance. Water is vital to ensure the population's well-being and quality of life and to preserve the rural-agricultural sector.
"Israel developed its self-sufficient water resources to supply to the metro system. 50 per cent of our water allocation is coming today from man-made sources. That means we are not depending on nature anymore," he said today.
"We supply in very large scale -- 50 per cent water for agriculture comes from reuse of water. We are recycling 90 per cent of wastewater and 95 per cent treated water across the country. While in India, the scale here is completely different," said Assaf who has done his M Sc in hydrology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a PhD from the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies.
Israel has suffered from a chronic water shortage for years.
Dr Assaf said that he has visited several states in India. "In the last 7 months, I was working, meeting people of the private as well as the central and state governments all over India. I visited Gujarat, Maharashtra, Haryana, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Goa and other states. My overall presence in India is working for the country, as a very large ability in managing lot of schemes like Jal Jeevan Mission, Jal Shakti."
He said that India has the ability, and power to do so on a very large scale.
( With inputs from ANI )
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