India Water Platform Meeting: strengthening the Indo-Dutch water partnership

India’s water sector offers significant opportunities for Dutch organisations, but success depends on trusted partnerships, understanding the local context and long-term commitment.  

This was the central message of the India Water Platform Meeting held on 7 July 2026 in Leeuwarden. Representatives from government, business and knowledge institutes from India and the Netherlands gathered to explore how Dutch expertise can help unlock opportunities in one of the world’s most complex and promising water sectors.

Since the Strategic Water Partnership (SWP) was launched in 2022, cooperation between India and The Netherlands has grown from an initial Memorandum of Understanding into a broad portfolio of impactful projects. These range from digital twins of the Ganga River and satellite-based water quality monitoring to Nature-based Solutions and flood risk management. At the forefront of this partnership is the India-Netherlands Centre of Excellence on Water at IIT Delhi, which is now running innovative pilot projects on nanofiltration, sludge treatment and emerging contaminants.

Programme updates

The India Water Platform Meeting opened with an overview of India’s river rejuvenation programme given by Shri Nalin Kumar Srivastava from the National Mission for Clean Ganga.  He highlighted flagship programmes such as the Jal Jeevan Mission and Namami Gange

Sander Carpay from the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management followed with an outline on how the Netherlands International Water Ambition (NIWA) is translating into cooperation across the Ganga basin, Kerala and West Bengal and now Gujarat.

Fernanda van der Velde and Esmee van de Ridder from RVO presented the Partners for Water programme, including its Water as Leverage approach, active in Prayagraj and Chennai. They also highlighted the City Champion Challenge, which invites local governments and communities worldwide to submit local climate solutions with the winning two cities attending the UN Water conference.

Market scan: opportunity and complexity

Two market scans- one from the Netherlands and one from India, confirmed that India’s water sector offers substantial opportunities for Dutch expertise while also underlining the importance of a well-informed strategy.

Based on thirteen in-depth interviews, the Dutch market scan, presented by Mirjam van Buchem (Netherlands Water Partnership) (hyperlink) and Steven van Rossum (Valuing Blue) (hyperlink) identified growing demand for expertise in climate resilience, flood risk and river basin management. However, it also flagged challenges such as fragmented procurement processes, long payment cycles and the need to demonstrate technologies under local conditions. The full report is expected to be published September 2026.

The Indian market scan, presented by Nitin Bassi and Saiba Gupta from Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) identified five priority areas for the coming five years: circular water management, IoT integration & automation, climate change adaptation, real-time monitoring and river-basin modelling & water accounting. These priorities are supported by major government programmes such as Jal Jeevan Mission 2.0 and Namami Gange.

“India’s water sector requires an estimated €395 billion by 2036 for basic municipal services alone”

The scale of the opportunity is considerable. While the Indian government has already committed around €118 billion through 16 national schemes, an estimated €395 billion is required by 2036 to provide basic municipal services alone.

The market scan offered practical recommendations for Dutch companies including resource recovery, industrial wastewater treatment and hydrological modelling. It distinguished between projects funded by Multilateral Development Banks (MDB) and traditional public-private partnerships (PPP) which are generally the most accessible for Dutch firms, since they favour international technical expertise.

Key recommendations for Dutch companies:

For Dutch companies, the report offered three key recommendations:

• Build on Dutch strengths in advanced energy-efficient water treatment technologies
• Develop local partnerships and licensing agreements to meet “Made in India” requirements and navigate lowest-cost tendering rules
• Use the Centre of Excellence at IIT Delhi as a matchmaking channel and engage industry bodies such as FICCI and CII for introductions

Invest International: financing the partnership

Marc Cabret introduced Invest International, the Dutch state-owned financing institution that supports Dutch companies investing and exporting abroad. He highlighted the strong trade relationship between India and Netherlands, now worth €27.3 billion and the newly established Dutch Desk at ICICI Bank, giving Dutch companies easier access to local financial expertise.

He also presented export finance solutions offered by Invest International as practical tools for Dutch SMEs including suppliers’ credit and pre-export working capital for transactions between €100,000 and €5 million.

Exploring opportunities beyond tradition water sectors

Moderated by Bart de Jong, the panel featured Nishi Pant (Netherlands Embassy, New Delhi), Majdi Al-Hjouj (NX Filtration) and Prachee van Brandenburg (India Business House).

Nishi Pant encouraged Dutch accompanies to use of the embassy’s network and explore opportunities beyond tradition water sectors. Majdi Al-Hjouj shared NX Filtration’s experience scaling membrane technology in India demonstrating how long-term commitment enabled the company to scale from a pilot to a planned capacity of 150–170 MLD.  Prachee van Brandenburg offered three observations. 1), companies can now research the Indian market far more thoroughly. 2), the Indian diaspora in the Netherlands is an underused resource and 3) a cultural understanding of water often opens doors before the hard data does: water is spiritual and communal in India, but mainly safety-driven in the Netherlands.