The BMC and Israel’s IED Technologies have signed a MoU (memorandum of understanding) on Monday to prepare a detailed project report (DPR) for a 200 MLD desalination plant at Manori.
The plant, which will be ready by 2025 and will help reduce the city’s dependence on the monsoon for drinking water, said Maharashtra tourism and environment minister Aaditya Thackeray.
“Along with water security for Mumbai and possibilities of capacity augmentation, the desalination plant will help us avoid financial and ecological costs of dam construction. This will help us save almost 4.5 lakh fully mature trees, the ecology and crores of rupees,” he added.
He took to Twitter saying, “I’m truly glad that I could play a small part in persuading the @mybmc to look at desalination to ensure water security for Mumbai and that through @HelloMTDC we could give the required land for the same. I’m thankful to Mayor, MC, AMC-P and @israelinMumbai for their support."
Meanwhile, chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, who was present at the event, said it as a “revolutionary step in regards to the water supply of Mumbai”. He said that some countries in the world have already started using sea water on a large scale by desalinating it with the help of modern technology.
“Every technology has a price but human life is more valuable than that. We all are responsible to make drinking water available to the citizens 24 hours of the day. In doing so, it is important to consider how many dams to build and how many trees to cut down. With this in mind, the sea water desalination is the need of the hour. From 2025, the project will start supplying pure water,” Thackeray said.
Urban development minister Eknath Shinde said that the BMC has taken an important step by signing the MoU for the desalination project in view of unseasonal rains and increasing demand for water. The source of drinking water can be further strengthened if the recycled water from the sewage treatment plant (STP) is made available for other purposes, like construction. He also said that the city’s development department will extend full cooperation towards the project.
