In time for Parched Chennai

The work on India’s largest desalination plant with a capacity to supply 100 million litres of water every day to parched Chennai finally took off today at Kaatupalli village near Minjur...

The work on India’s largest desalination plant with a capacity to supply 100 million litres of water every day to parched Chennai finally took off today at Kaatupalli village near Minjur, north of the city.

Caught in a political tussle, the project was to have been implemented during the previous AIADMK regime.

Today, Local Administration Minister MK Stalin flagged off the Rs 510-crore project, touted as the second largest in Asia, with the necessary environment clearance, which had been one of the issues that had delayed its take-off under the previous government. The delay had also been caused by a Russian bidder moving the court over tendering issues in 2003.

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The legal and political hiccups now cleared, the plant, a joint venture of Hyderabad-based IVRCL Infrastructures and Projects and its technical partner, the Spain-based BEFESA-CTA, is expected to be set up by June 2008 with water supply beginning in July the same year.

E Sudhir Reddy, chairman of IVRCL, said the desalinated water would cost 4.8 paise per litre, or Rs 48.66 per kilolitre, which according to him was the cheapest in the world. The IVRCL has signed a water purchase agreement with the government-run Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board for 25 years, with the latter taking on the distribution which would be mainly for north Chennai, including the industrial belt in Minjur.

Set up on Design-Build-Own-Operate-Transfer basis for a period of 25 years, the plant would be fully automatic, operating round-the-clock for at least 355 days in a year. About 237 million literes per day (mld) of seawater would be used to generate 100 mld of drinking water using the reverse osmosis process. The project will come up on 35 acres of land but 25 acres would be used to create a bio-shield (planting of trees) around the plant.

The DMK, which came to power in May last year, had little difficulty in getting the necessary environment clearances considering Environment Minister A Raja belonged to the party. The Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI) claimed to have conducted a study on the fauna and flora around the area where the plant would come up and where the brine would be discharged. The CMFRI has suggested methods for reducing the impact of brine on marine life, which would also be monitored by the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board. A proposal is being prepared for another similar plant for south Chennai. Presently, the water requirement for the city and a few surrounding areas is estimated at about 1,470 mld. But supply is only 650 mld. Metrowater officials project the supply-demand gap to be around 1,000 mld by 2015. The project is one among several schemes that successive governments have conceived to augment the water needs of Chennai.