Suez wins the contract for the Colaba wastewater treatment plant

Biz@India

French utilities giant Suez is pushing forward its expansion in India, a booming market with tremendous needs.

The Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) has given French giant Suez the contract to design and build the Colaba wastewater treatment facility, an upscale district of the economic capital of India, which faces enormous sanitation infrastructure needs with its growing population.

French utilities giant Suez is pushing forward its expansion in India, a booming market with tremendous needs. Its last contract for the Colaba wastewater treatment facility, in Mumbai, Maharashtra (West), comprises a three-year construction phase, followed by 15 years of maintenance. According to Suez, this amounts to a total turnover of Euros 42 million for the group.

Mumbai and its more than 15 million people have witnessed, in recent decades, an increasing pressure on their water resources, facing a combination of intense urban growth and population increase. In partnership with Indian Central government, local authorities aim at developing fast wastewater management, while existing infrastructures – a network of 1,500 km collecting 1.7 million cubic meters (m3) of wastewater on a daily basis- are insufficient to face an increasing volume of water to be treated.

The MCGM is implementing the second phase of a master plan to develop its drainage systems and wastewater treatment, designed to anticipate the future needs and manage the flow expected by 2025. This project aims especially at modernizing existing facilities and building seven new stations in Mumbai, including the Colaba one, which has a processing capacity of 37,000 m3 per day and a tertiary treatment by filtration and disc chlorination for reusing treated wastewater. The districts of Worli, Bandra, Versova, Malad, Ghatkopar and Bhandup will welcome the other planned new stations in Mumbai.

Suez has been active in Mumbai for 35 years. The French group has designed the drinking water stations Bhandup and Panjarapur with a total processing capacity of 3.4 million m3 per day. Suez is also building a new plant at Vihar Lake.

Tackle India’s water challenges

“We are proud to be part of the ambitious project that MCGM has undertaken to tackle the wastewater issue for the city of Mumbai and its inhabitants. We are committed to tackle water challenges in India by providing innovative and tailor-made solutions to local authorities to improve water distribution services and ensure access to efficient sanitation services for heavily populated cities like Mumbai.” said Marie-Ange Debon, Senior Executive Vice-President in charge of the International Division of Suez.

Suez is a global giant with over 82,000 employees worldwide and a total turnover of Euros 15.1 billion in 2015. India, where the group has been operating for more than three decades now and where it has more than 500 employees, is one of its key markets for international growth. Suez, which says it has designed and built over 200 water and wastewater plants in the country, currently operates 23 of them in India. In addition to Mumbai, Suez also provides water services to other major Indian cities such as New Delhi, the Indian capital, and Bangalore. According to Suez, its activities contribute towards the distribution of 5 billion litres of drinking water to over 44 million people every day in India. As far as wastewater treatment services are concerned, the plants built and managed by the company serve some 5.5 million inhabitants, according to Suez.