Prime Minister Khaleda Zia is expected to lay the foundation stone at Kalurghat under Chandgaon thana as chief guest.

LGRD and Cooperatives Minister Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, Foreign Minister M Morshed Khan and Commerce Minister Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury will be present on the occasion.

The TK 197.70 crore project, to be financed by the government, was approved at a meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) on September 16, sources said.

At a meeting with the members of the local press here on Saturday, Md Azizur Rahman, chairman of the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA), Chittagong said work on the installation of the project would start soon and it would be completed by within four years.

"Since the government is financing the project, formalities like appointment of consultant and approval of the project design would not take much time," he added.

The chairman said on completion of the project with the production capacity of two crore gallons of water per day, the daily production of WASA, Chittagong would be raised to over 5.50 crore gallons per day.

At present Chittagong WASA, through its Mohora Water Treatment Plant (MWTP) and deep tube-wells, produces some 3.70 crore gallons of water per day as against the city dwellers' daily need of over 11 crore gallons resulting in an acute crisis of water.

The chairman said the government is financing the project as an expansion of existing Mohora Water Treatment Plant (MWTP) due to failure of WASA, Chittagong to get financial assistance from the Japanese Bank of International Cooperation (JBIC) for the project when it was titled as MWTP Phase 2.