Veolia–Welspun Win Mumbai Water Projects: Allegations of Cartelisation Stand Vindicated

What was dismissed as an Opposition allegation has now been confirmed by the beneficiary itself.

Mumbai: In July last year, Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant stood before the media and made a specific charge: that Mumbai’s water purification tenders—Bhandup and Panjrapur—were being shaped to ensure one technology supplier and one contractor. He named Veolia as the technology provider and Welspun Enterprises Ltd as the contractor. He alleged that eligibility norms were being altered, competition deliberately curtailed, and guidelines of the Central Vigilance Commission violated. He warned that this was not procurement, but cartelisation.

At the time, the allegation was brushed aside as politics.

Today, Veolia’s own press release has done what no inquiry has done so far—it has confirmed the sequence of events.

Veolia has officially announced that it has secured the technology supply and 15-year operations and maintenance contracts for both the 2,000 MLD Bhandup and the 910 MLD Panjrapur water treatment plants, with Welspun Enterprises as the project developer. Exactly as predicted. Same projects. Same combination. Same outcome.

This is not hindsight. This is foresight validated.

The tender history matters. The Bhandup project was delayed repeatedly. Eligibility criteria were altered mid-process to insist on “India-only experience,” effectively shutting out global competition. The Panjrapur tender was postponed eight times, cancelled once on the claim that no bidder responded, and then reissued with even tighter conditions. Pre-bid minutes were not placed in the public domain on time. Final approvals came at costs nearly 30 per cent higher than original estimates.

None of this happened accidentally.

This newsroom had reported last year that these tenders carried classic red flags of cartelisation—tailor-made eligibility clauses, pre-fixed technology choices, inflated estimates, and a narrowing field that discouraged genuine competition. What was reported then now stands reinforced by corporate confirmation.

Veolia may call this a landmark win for sustainability and water security. For Mumbai’s citizens, it raises a more fundamental question: were these tenders ever meant to be competitive?

When rules are changed after bids are issued, when global players are excluded by design, when the same contractor-technology pairing wins project after project, and when warnings issued months in advance turn out to be accurate down to the last detail, the issue ceases to be a political allegation. It becomes an institutional failure.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation is the custodian of public money, not a staging ground for engineered outcomes. If the process was clean, why did it require repeated postponements? If it was fair, why were eligibility doors narrowed instead of widened? And if everything was above board, how did one press conference predict the final outcome so precisely?

This is not about Veolia winning a contract.

It is about how the contract was won.

The warning came first.

The confirmation followed.

Only accountability is still missing.