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Centre approves water treatment plant for Chennai

NEW DELHI: The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on Friday approved setting up of a ‘100 MLD Sea Water Reverse Osmosis Desalination Plant’ at Nemmeli near Chennai at a total cost of Rs. 908.28 crore. The project will lead to additional capacity of 100 MLD of water to meet the drinking water needs of Chennai city and would enhance the per capita supply also.

Of the total amount, Rs 871.24 crore will be borne by the Centre and will be given as grant to the Tamil Nadu government for implementing the project which will be completed in 2010-11, Union Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal told reporters here. The remaining cost would be borne by the State government and the project implemented by the Chennai Metro Water Supply Sewerage Board.

Mr. Sibal said Chennai was an important economic centre in the country and had been developing as an Information Technology hub. It had a sizable number of industrial establishments and was among the top ten car manufacturing centres in the world. The city had faced acute shortage of water in the past and in 2004 water had to be transported through tankers and rails from places as far as Neyveli and Mettur, Mr. Sibal said.

The CCEA also approved a proposal for development of two-laning of paved shoulder of Karaikudi-Ramanathapuram section of NH-210 under the National Highway Development Project (NHDP) phase-III on BOT (build, operate, transfer) and DBFOT (design, build, finance, operate and transfer) basis.

The project cost for 80 km of the section is estimated at Rs. 530.33 crore, including Rs. 76.21 crore, towards land acquisition (LA), rehabilitation and resettlement (R&R) and pre-construction. The government would provide the viability gap funding (VGF) which would not exceed 40 per cent of the total project cost excluding the cost of LA, R&R and pre-construction.

The project will be developed by the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) through the private sector concessionaires who will be selected through two stage bidding process.

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