Odisha govt signs MoU for bulk water supply in Bhubaneswar

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Bhubaneswar, Oct 27:

The Odisha government today signed a Concession Agreement under Public Private Partnership (PPP) with a private sector player for a bulk water supply project in the capital city.

On completion, the project will supply water to renowned institutions like IIT, Bhubaneswar and National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER), industrial establishments like INFOCITY-II, Sea Food Park at Deras and Khordha and Jatani towns, official sources said.

The concession agreement was signed between Public Health Engineering Organisation (PHEO) and the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) while the tripartite bulk water supply agreement was signed between Public Health Engineering Organisation (PHEO) and Megha Engineering Infrastructures Ltd (MEIL), Bhubaneswar; Bulk Water Project Private Ltd and IIT, Bhubaneswar; and NISER and Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (IDCO) in presence of chief minister Naveen Patnaik and senior officials at the State Secretariat here.

Speaking on the occasion, the chief minister appreciated the effort of Housing & Urban Development department in grounding a complex PPP project involving multiple beneficiaries.

“Odisha has a strong institutional and policy frame work for undertaking innovative PPP projects for urban Infrastructure”, he added.

Stating that the new State Urban Water Policy-2013 has a committed investment of Rs 4, 380 crore for providing universal access to potable pipe water at affordable, equitable and sustainable manner, he asked the department to take up more urban infrastructure projects in PPP mode in future.

G Mathivathanan, commissioner-cum-secretary, Housing & Urban Development, informed that the project entailing a project cost of Rs 188 crore shall be operational by April, 2017 and will benefit more than 2 lakh population with uninterrupted supply of clean drinking water at an affordable rate.

Stating that Odisha is the first state to execute such a complex water sector project with multiple beneficiaries on PPP mode with funding under the Viability Gap Funding (VGF) scheme of the Centre, he said the project has been awarded with a maximum VGF of Rs 50 crore to be jointly funded by the Centre and the Odisha government.

The project, awarded on DBFOT (Design-Build-Finance-Operate-Transfer) basis for a Concession Period of 25 years, would be integrated with the existing water supply system of Khordha and Jatni.

The Concessionaire has been selected through a transparent bidding process as per the guidelines of the VGF scheme, Mathivathanan said.