BMC nod for 1st desalination plant

MUMBAI: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) plan to set up a desalination plant in the city received an in-principle approval from the civic standing committee on Monday. The move will allow BMC to make the required decisions to construct the project, subject to further approvals. The standing committee approved the formation of a special committee under the chairmanship of the civic commissioner to oversee the project. It also approved the administration’s request to allow IDE Water Technologies to prepare a detailed project report (DPR) for the desalination plant, after the firm submitted an unsolicited proposal to the civic body for this project.

“IDE Water Technologies submitted an unsolicited proposal to BMC for this project. As the original proposer of the project, BMC has asked the firm to submit a project report. Following this, competitive bidding will take place for construction of the project. A DPR is expected to be completed in eight months, after which it is likely to take 30 months to construct the plant,” a statement issued by BMC read.

BMC will submit a proposal to the state to form the committee for the project, and a government resolution will be issued by the state for its formation.

To meet the growing demand, BMC decided to construct a desalination plant with a capacity of 200 million litres of water per day (MLD) of water, which can be expanded to 400 MLD per day in the future.