a water solutions company has been awarded the contract worth Rs. 1,033-crore by the Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board for designing, erecting and operating the country's largest sea water desalination project.

Rajiv Mittal, Managing Director of the company said on Tuesday 'We will design, build and operate the plant for seven years. The plant capacity will be 100 million litres per day and sea water will be converted into drinking water, using reverse osmosis technology.'

The location of the plant would be on a 40 acres site in Nemmeli, near Chennai with the capacity of 100 million litresa day.

Of the Rs. 1,033-crore contract, Rs. 533 crore would be for the design and building of the plant, and remaining Rs. 500 crore for operation and maintenance spanning seven years. The plant is expected to begin operation in the next 24 months.

VA Tech Wabag would partner IDE Technologies of Israel in a 70:30 joint venture for the project. 'IDE Technologies is into this space and has the experience of setting up very large-sized desalination plants. We tied up with it as we found its technology is less power-intensive,' Mittal said.

The expected consumption of 16 MW of power per day is to be supplied by a sub-station set up by the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board. This plant would be the city's second such plant as the first is already being set up at Minjur in north Chennai.