GVMC keen to set up desalination plant
The plan is to set up the plant under Public Private Partnership mode to meet the industrial and civic water supply shortage
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Visakhapatnam AS part of its vision to overcome the demand and supply gap of water for industries and domestic consumption, the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) is keen on calling for bids for a seawater desalination plant.
The urban civic body, which had earlier also launched exercises to take up the project, is very keen this time as Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy had directed it to ground the project at the earliest.
Sources said GVMC, which got a newly elected body some time ago, has launched a fresh exercise to establish the project to produce water for use by the industries and for domestic consumption with an investment of Rs 500 crore to Rs 700 crore. The city to be made the executive capital of the State has been promised supply of 24 TMC from the Polavaram project.
As uncertainty clouds the timely completion of the multi-purpose Polavaram project, which has been given national status in the AP Reorganisation Act of 2014, is starving for funds. At a recent review meeting, the Chief Minister said the Centre had to disburse Rs16,000 crore towards its share till date for the national project. The seawater desalination plant will be taken up under Public Private Partnership programme.
The project for which survey was done at Appikonda near Visakhapatnam Steel Plant and Pudimadaka, where an electronic cluster is proposed. It will come up at one of the two places, sources in GVMC told Bizz Buzz. The project is expected to need 100 acres.
At present, NTPC Simhadri Super Thermal Power Plant has a flue gas-based desalination plant as a joint venture with NTPC Energy Technology Research Alliance (NETRA) with an investment of Rs 8.5 crore at Parawada near here. Though Visakhapatnam Steel Plant also hobnobbed with the idea of establishing a desalination plant, it was never taken up seriously. An Israeli delegation from IDE Technology met the Chief Minister at Tadepalli, his camp office last year and expressed their keenness to extend their support to set up desalination plants in the coastal districts of the State. Due to pandemic, there was no follow-up on this.
However, the Chief Minister categorically told GVMC officials to examine various options to establish a desalination plant in Visakhapatnam to bridge the gap between demand and supply for the industries and residents.
GVMC through Visakhapatnam Industrial Water Supply Company (VIWSCO), which is funded by VSP, NTPC and others, is meeting the industrial needs by diverting Godavari water through Yeleru left main canal. VIWSCO is supplying 70 million gallons per day.
