Montería city in Colombia renews water service contract with Veolia

France based Veolia has won a renewal of contract worth €226m for managing water services in Montería, Colombia.

Under the renewed terms, the French utility will serve the city through its local subsidiary Proactiva Aguas de Monteria for a further ten years, starting from 2019.

Veolia is expected to develop a wastewater treatment plant to cover the needs of 100,000 residents in the city which is home to 540,000 people in total.

The firm will also be responsible for extending Montería’s wastewater network in order to connect 100% of the population within two years.

Presently, 82% of the population has access to the wastewater services in the city.

The municipality of Monteria is also likely to have better access to potable water supplies, which in turn, will call for deployment of water pressure regulator stations and operation of water distribution systems in rural regions.

Veolia has been providing drinking water distribution and wastewater services for the last 15 years.

Besides extending the drinking water distribution network to cover the entire city from its previous coverage for 58%, Veolia has also been able to improve access to drinking water to 24/24 from 6/24 prior to the start of the contract.

Veolia has also brought down technical and commercial losses for water services in the city to 25% from the previous rate of 70%.

The firm also delivers drinking water to over 10,000 people along the outskirts of the Montería municipality via its local subsidiary under ‘Piletas Públicas’ social programme.

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Image: View of Monteria from the Sinu river. Photo: courtesy of Carlos Crismatt Mouthon – Gobernación de Córdoba / Wikipedia.