The company expects the order size to eventually grow further to about Rs 400 crore for which negotiations are on, L & T president (operations) A Ramakrishna told The Financial Express in an interview.

The consortium has been selected by the New Tirupur Area Development Corporation Ltd (NTADCL), the special purpose vehicle established by the Tamil Nadu government to execute the Tirupur Area Development Project (TADP) which basically aims to improve the infrastructure including water supply to the textile town of Tirupur.

Although a broad understanding has been reached between NTADCL and the consortium on the water prices pegged down at around Rs 45 per 1,000 litres per day (Rs 40 and Rs 5 for commercial and domestic consumers respectively) supplies to theTirupur municipality, it is learnt that a final memorandum of understanding (MoU) is yet to be signed.

A TN government source disclosed that talks with the consortium are still going on and it may take another month to ink the MoU and the project could head for a financial closure by April next year. NTADCL will soon be making a formal proposal to tap financial assistance from long-term infrastructural funds like the International Water Fund and Global Development Fund, it is said.

The project aims at supplying 185 million litres of water per day to the Tirupur municipality and industrial units around the area. While Bechtel as EPC-1 contractor will deliver 185 million litres of water per day from the Cauvery river near Bhavani to the master balancing reservoir (MBR) about 60 km away, Mahindra as EPC-2 has subcontracted L&T to build reservoirs and lay the feeder main lines.

The reservoir capacities range will differ from 2 lakh litres to 20 lakh litres. L & T will build the 25 reservoirs and lay thefeeder mains which will cover 1000 industrial units getting about 100 million litres per day, half of which will go to units located inside the municipality.

L & T will also be laying some 240 km of water pipeline network inside the Tirupur municipality besides building the sewerage network of around 300 km catering to six zones. The sewerage collection will be done by five pumping stations and two treatment plants (in the east and west of the town) and treated water will be disposed of into the river following pollution control board norms.

The water project will take about three years to build while sewerage work will be done in phases and completed in six years. Work is expected to start by March 1999.

L & T will also build about 400 low-cost sanitation facilities (public toilets) for the slum-dwelling areas as part of the area development scheme, it is said.