
A major U.S. civil engineering contractor is under scrutiny after its work on a major project to build a water pipeline in India ended in a dispute with the Indian government.
The American Civil Engineering Association said in a statement Wednesday that it was reviewing the work done by KVRC in the past five years to determine how it has complied with the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).KVRC was contracted to provide a pipeline for India’s national transporter (NNT) to transport water from the Arabian Sea to the country’s cities, where it would be piped to a storage tank.
The NNT is an integral part of the national infrastructure and is used to generate electricity and water.
However, India objected to the NNT being used as a means to produce water and was seeking a halt to the project.
A court in India has ordered KVrc to suspend work on the project and pay the government’s costs.
In the meantime, KVRL, a subsidiary of the Indian company Indigenie, has been working on the pipeline, with some of its subcontractors.
The work on its first major project, a $1 billion pipeline for the state-run Indian Railways, is now being delayed.KVRL did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.KVLRC is one of more than a dozen contractors that were contracted by the Indian Ministry of Water Resources to help construct the project, which has cost $400 million.KGVRA is a subsidiary that is currently working on two major pipelines that carry water from northern India to the northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh.
One of the pipelines, which is being built by KGVRA, is expected to carry about 1,500 million cubic meters of water annually.