Sweden's Lackeby teams with NAPC on India water treatment

Sweden-based water treatment firm Lackeby Water Group has entered the Indian market through a joint venture with Chennai, India-based infrastructure, real estate development and contractual mining company NAPC.

The NAPC-Purac venture is securing institutional investors for wastewater treatment, desalination and purification projects up to about $500 million, the companies said today.

The JV is expected to address the growing need for water treatment, wastewater treatment and desalination technologies thanks to the rapidly expanding urban populations. The country has introduced more stringent pollution control, which is rendering many existing technologies obsolete.

Lackeby developed technology to purify drinking water, as well as treat wastewater and biological waste. The company contracts its work through its brand, Purac, which gets 60 percent of its revenue from municpal contracts.

Already, the venture has submitted bids for three sewage treatment plant contracts, valued at about Rs 200 crore ($41.2 million) in the Nesapakkam, Perungudi and Navalur regions.

NAPC-Purac also has plans to bid on a Rs 1,000 crore ($206 million) desalination plant.

NAPC is expected to be the lead bidder on projects, while Purac would provide the technology.

A similar model was used for Chennai Water Desalination Limited's 100-million liter (26-million U.S. gallon) per day desalination plant, which was scheduled to begin delivering water to Kaatupalli, near Minjur, in January. The developer is a joint venture of Hyderabad, India-based IVRCL Infrastructure and Spain-based Befesa Construcción Tecnología Ambiental (see India readies large-scale desal plant).

And last year India's Jain Irrigation Systems partnered with Israel's national water company Mekorot to explore projects in desalination, water resource management, water supply, municipal water management and/or wastewater treatment and reclamation projects (see Israel's Mekorot to develop water infrastructure in India).

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