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“Capacity building, institutional strengthening and development of guidelines and tools to support safety management (among others) are key issues to achieve a smart infrastructure governance”. These statements were done by Ignacio Escuder at DD News (National TV Channel in India) during the “International Dam Safety Conference – 2018” held in Kerala (India).
During the program also participated Mr. Sanjay Kundu, joint secretary of the Ministry of Water Resources and Mr. N.K. Mathur, member of the Central Water Commission.
During the programme, Ignacio Escuder, founding partner of iPresas, said that India has the opportunity to be at the forefront of the world in dam safety management, because it has experience in dam construction (also ongoing) and design, and is also working in an innovative way to enhance dam safety of existing and new ones.
“If you provide proper legislation to the new context that allows to build safety and more robust dams, and adapting the existing to the new climatic demands, most probably this is the best investment that you can do” he said during the interview.
India has about 5000 dams, many of which are small size and it is the third country in the world in number of these infrastructures.
Spain and the dam safety context
Also, he emphasized the parallel situation between India and Spain, remembering that Spain as a modern country would not exist without the current portfolio of dams.
“Spain would be very different in population, social welfare and modernity. Our water systems would not be able to provide resources for 46 million people and sectors as agriculture, industry and tourism would not be so developed”.
For this reason, it considers that Spain is a top country in the dam engineering field given the importance of these infrastructures, combining innovative technology for safety of dams and water resources.
The full interview can be found at this link.