International Financial Corporation (IFC), a division of the World Bank, has proposed to lend up to $21 million to Visakha Water Reclamation Infrastructure Pvt Ltd, which is a special purpose company set up to develop a 63 million litres per day (MLD) tertiary treatment plant in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh.
“The proposed IFC investment is a $10.5 million A loan for IFC’s own account, and a B loan/parallel loan for $10.5 million,” IFC said. The estimated cost of the project is around $30 million.
Visakha Water will use the fund for supplying treated municipal waste for industrial re-use applications in Vishakhapatnam. Also, “The project will use the sites of city’s existing Laxmi Talkies sewage treatment plant and Appu Ghar sewage treatment plant,” the statement said.
The company had inked a 26-year concession pact with the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corp in July last year for the development of the project.
Visakha Water is owned by AV Rambabu Infra Pvt Ltd and Eco Protection Engineers, a Chennai-based turnkey contract company that specialises in water and wastewater in management projects. It also offers consultancy, design and engineering services.
AV Rambabu Infra is into civil construction. The company undertakes projects in irrigation, water supply, drainage and other public private participation projects, and construction of effluent treatment plants.
Earlier in October this year, media reports said that IFC is planning to garner $1 billion via issue of a rupee-linked bonds programme and would use the proceeds to invest in private sector projects in India.
Recently, it invested in Azure Power’s rooftop solar project in Gujarat and had also plans to offer $50 million in debt to ACME Solar Energy, to part finance select solar photovoltaic power projects.
(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)
