July 20, 2007 -- On 19 July, the authorities in the Indian city of Chennai and Degrémont, subsidiary of SUEZ Environment, together officially opened the extension to the country's second largest drinking water production plant. This plant provides 530,000 m3/day of drinking water to almost four million people and will be operated by Degremont for seven years.
To meet the growing needs of Chennai's population, in May 2005 the Chennai Metro Water Supply and Sewerage Board placed a contract for the design, construction and operation of a drinking water production facility with Suez Group subsidiary Degrémont, a world specialist in drinking water plant.
The plant was designed and built in 24 months at a total cost of 25.2 million euros, with 6.6 million euros financed by a French State protocol and more than 1.07 billion rupees (18.7 million euros) by the Tamil Nadu Urban Finance and Infrastructure Development Corporation, an Indian government body.
The plant is fully automated and managed using a SCADA system. It uses the Degrémont-developed Aquazur V and Pulsator clarification and filtration techniques, which have already proven their worth around the world.
Degrémont is the SUEZ Environment development platform in India. Degrémont has been present in India since 1954 and has designed, built and operated many drinking water and wastewater treatment plants. These include drinking water plants in Mumbai for 11 million inhabitants, Bangalore for 1.5 million inhabitants and more recently Delhi, for 3.5 million people.
Since 1986 Degrémont has been working in partnership with the Indian group ANAND, the country's premier automotive systems and components manufacturer. Degrémont has 200 staff in India and over 60% of its business is in the municipal sector. It is the country's leading supplier of turnkey water and wastewater treatment facilities and expects annual growth of around 30% to meet India's very considerable infrastructure demand.
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