Mumbai: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and Israel's IDE Technologies have signed an MoU (memorandum of understanding) on Monday to prepare a DPR (detailed project report) for a 200 MLD desalination plant at Manori.
The plant, which will be ready by 2025, will help reduce the city's dependence on the monsoon for drinking water in times of climate change, said Maharashtra Tourism and Environment Minister Aaditya Thackeray.
"Along with water security for Mumbai, and possibilities of capacity augmentation, this desalination plant will help us avoid financial and ecological costs of dam construction, saving almost 4.5 lakh fully mature trees, ecology and thousands of crores further required," he added.
"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," Aaditya said in a tweet.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, who was present during the signing, termed it as a "revolutionary step in water supply for Mumbai". He said that some countries in the world have already started using seawater 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 and we all have a responsibility to make drinking water available to the citizens 24 hours a day. In doing so, it is important to consider how many dams to build and how many trees to cut down and desert the land and take an alternative route. With this in mind, the seawater desalination project is now coming to fruition. From 2025, the project will start supplying pure water," Uddhav said.
Maharashtra Urban Development Minister Eknath Shinde said that the BMC has taken an important step today by signing an MoU for the desalination project in view of unseasonal rains and increasing demand for water. He said that this would meet the demand for many days. The source of drinking water can be further strengthened if the recycled water from the STP project is made available for other purposes including construction. He also said that the city development department would extend full cooperation for this project.
