The board of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) signaled Tuesday preliminary approved for a 400 million euro wastewater treatment programme in Egypt's governorate of Fayoum that could provide over one million people with modern sanitation, read a statement on the bank's website.

The EBRD said it would provide a sovereign loan of up to 170 million euros to the programme that involves the construction of eight wastewater plants and the expansion of 17 existing plants.

The programme will also include the expansion of the sewerage network in the area and the purchase of equipment for all wastewater facilities and evacuation trucks to serve the area.

It is expected, according to the EBRD statement, that the project will be co-financed by a sovereign loan of up to 160 million euros from the European Investment Bank (EIB) and a 30 million euros investment grant from the EU Neighbourhood Investment Facility (NIF).

A foreign consultancy office is currently conducting a feasibility study on the project and will hand it to the EBRD by the end of the month, Mohey El-Din Mohamed, an official in the Holding Company for Water and Wastewater (HCWW), familiar with the project, told Ahram Online Wednesday.

If the project is approved by the EBRD board, it would take at least a year to start construction, Mohamed added.

The project will provide first time sanitation to some one million inhabitants of 1,831 unserved villages in Fayoum, which will raise sanitation coverage from the current 49 percent to full coverage.

The wastewater plants will also reduce water pollution in Fayoum's Lake Qarun by treating 350,000 cubic metres per day that are currently disposed in the lake.

The project will be carried out by the Fayoum Company for Water and Wastewater, which was incorporated in 2004 as one of the subsidiary companies of HCWW.

Fayoum governorate has a total population of around three million.