BMC decides not to set up desalination plants

While the city is facing one of its major water crises, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has turned down a proposal to set up desalination plants citing its enormous cost and lack of land.

The state government had appointed a high-level committee to study and suggest measures for setting up desalination plants in Mumbai. The committee recommended to install two pilot plants of 100 million litres daily (mld) capacity each – one for the city, to be set up by the BMC, and another for suburbs and metropolitan areas, to be set up by the MMRDA. However, collectors of city and suburbs and Mumbai Port Trust expressed inability saying the 25 acres of land required for the project could not be made available at the coastal side.

The BMC had also decided to seek help from private investors to set up desalination plants. But they too backed out due to unavailability of land.

“The cost required for setting up of 100 mld desalination plant is Rs 1,000 crore. The large-scale desalination uses large amounts of energy and specialised expensive infrastructure, making it more costly than fresh water from conventional sources, such as rivers or ground water.”

“As water resources are available within 100 to 150 kms of the city, it’s convenient and less costly to bring water from them by laying pipelines,” the official further added.

The cost of desalinated water comes to Rs 70 for 1,000 litres, whereas the BMC supplies same amount of water to residential users for just Rs 4.32. Hence, desalinated water will be too expensive for common people, the official added.