Official sources said the agreement will be signed between NMC, special purpose vehicle of NMC- Nagpur Environmental Services Limited (NESL) and OCWL, a joint venture of France-based Veolia Water and city-based M/s Vishwaraj Infrastructures Limited, in a closed door programme to be held at 12 noon on Thursday.
On the behalf of NMC, municipal commissioner Sanjeev Jaiswal will sign the agreement. Top officials of Veolia have arrived from France for the agreement.Once agreement is signed, the water works of the city will pass into OCWL hand for next 25 years.
Officials said the private operator will take about a week to start functioning. For reasons not clear, NMC has kept signing of agreement very secret. The public programme of hand over is likely on November 28. The operator will take over water treatment plants, over head water tanks, staffers, billing system, offices and entire water network of the city. Later, it will execute 24x7 water supply scheme in all parts of the city.
The central government had sanctioned Nagpur Water Supply Efficiency project under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). The 24x7 water supply was a part of the project. The pilot project implemented in Dharampeth Zone was to be completed by June 2010 but it is incomplete even now. It was to be extended to entire city from April 2009 and completed by April 2012.
Now it is running behind schedule.After emerging as lowest bidder, NMC issued a letter of intent (LoI) to Veolia on November 18, 2010. The company was to take over the water works within 120 days, that is by March 18, 2011 but there was another delay. The ruling group wasn't sure whether handing over water works to private operator before civic elections will help it in the polls. It seems the office bearers have finally given green signal.
No comments:
Post a Comment