G-77/PGTF Project on Sustainable Rainwater Harvesting and
Ground Water Recharge in Developing Countries HRD and Technology Transfer
Third Meeting of the Apex Committee

The 3^rd meeting of the Apex Committee of the G-77/PGTF multilateral collaborative project entitled 'Sustainable Rainwater Harvesting and Ground Water Recharge in Developing Countries - HRD and Technology Transfer' was organised under the chairmanship of Prof. Arun P. Kulshreshtha, Director, NAM S&T Centre on 26^th February 2010 at Bengaluru, India following the conclusion of an international Trainers' Training programme under the same project. Ms. Tanuja N. Ariyananda, Director, Lanka Rainwater Harvesting Forum (LRHF), Sri Lanka; Prof. Ram Takwale, President, Indian Consortium for Educational Transformation (I-CONSENT), Pune, India; Mr. Vasant Takalkar, Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Ltd. (MKCL), Pune, India; Prof. M. S. Mohan Kumar, Secretary and Mr. A. R. Shivakumar, Executive Secretary for the Karnataka State Council for Science and Technology (KSCST), Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India; and Mr. M. Bandyopadhyay, Member Secretary of the Apex Committee and Senior Expert, NAM S&T Centre were the other participants in the meeting.

The Chairman welcomed the members and expressed satisfaction over the successful organisation of the Trainers' Training Programme on RWH & GWR, and congratulated KSCST for the excellent management and coordination of the event. The Chairman also thanked KSCST, I-CONSENT, MKCL and LRHF for their vital contributions in the project.

The Member-Secretary of the Apex Committee updated the members on the progress of the Project with respect to the agreed Plan of Action. He informed the members that two major components of the project had been successfully completed in the form of Pune workshop and Bengaluru training programme, and the third and last component, State-of-the-Art (SOTA) Report on RWH & GWR in developing countries, was in progress. It was proposed to compile and include the course material and lecture notes of the Bengaluru training programme as Part-II of this publication.

Prof. Mohan Kumar thanked the NAM S&T Centre for gathering the experts from 16 developing countries to discuss this significant subject, and indicated the participants' feedback and enthusiasm as a symbol to the success of the training programme. Mr. Shivakumar marked the strength of the training programme through the fact that the ratio of trainers vs. trainees was almost 1:1. Ms. Ariyananda informed the members of the status of the SOTA Report. Prof. Takwale proposed the creation of an e-resource learning system to support the trainees in implementing programmes in their countries, in which a group of knowledge providers would be offering online solutions to the local trainers and common people, and thus the desired people would get easy and direct solutions from this open resource of knowledge.

The meeting ended with thanks to the Chair and other members of the Committee.