Jamshedpur Utilities & Services Company (JUSCO), a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Steel, and Veolia Water India, a wholly owned subsidiary of Veolia Water Africa - Middle East - India (AMI), announced today they have signed a joint development agreement (JDA) to build a strong partnership aiming at developing water services in India.

With this JDA, a new step in their mutual intention of coordinating and combining their resources, skills and expertise, the partners are anticipating the future preparation and submission of joint bids or proposals on projects launched by central or state governments, public or private organisations and companies for operations and management in the water sector.

Projects could cover a wide range of water and wastewater services in India such as, operations and maintenance, customer services, lease contracts, concession, BOO and BOT. Proposals for the industries would also cover water treatment process and waste water recycling.

JUSCO and Veolia Water India have been successfully working together, on a management contract basis, in the city of Jamshedpur (state of Jharkhand) since 2003. JUSCO is managing all city utilities while Veolia Water India provides expertise for reducing operating costs, increasing revenue, bringing management efficiency and monitoring performance through benchmarking practices.

Jamshedpur Utilities & Services Company (JUSCO) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Steel, the flagship company of the Tata group. Created in 2003 out of Tata Steel's town services division, which has developed and managed the utilities and services at Jamshedpur (India's only ISO 14001 certified civic services) for the last 97 years, JUSCO seeks to leverage its vast experience in this field and aspires to emerge as a national player in the water, wastewater and municipal solid waste management sector. With a workforce of 1400 employees, who currently service a population of around 750,000 it is the only private sector company in India which provides comprehensive municipal services to a township and hopes to offer its expertise to other cities in the country in times to come.

Veolia Water India is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Veolia Water Africa - Middle East - Indian subcontinent (AMI), a member of Veolia Water - the world leader in water and waste water services - VW AMI is specialised in outsourcing services for governments, municipal and local authorities as well as for industrial and service companies. It also benefits from the group's wealth of experience in the designing of technological solutions and the construction of facilities needed in water and wastewater services. With 6,500 employees, Veolia Water AMI currently services close to 5 million people, bringing necessary technical, economic and environmental know-how to its clients, making access to water a reality.