The proposal by Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited, corporate entity of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, to set up 10 million gallons per day (MGD) desalination plant has evoked good response.
The expression of interest sought by it for taking up the project under engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) basis has attracted bids by 30 Indian and international firms.
“We will take a decision after evaluation of the proposals,” an official of RINL told The Hindu . The project, mooted to overcome water woes faced by the Navratna company, is likely to be taken up under Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) basis. This will be the first desalination plant being set up by an industry in the State.
RINL is in the process of ramping up its expansion project taken up to raise production capacity to 6.3 million tonnes at a cost of Rs.12,500 crore with internal accruals. It recently represented to Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu seeking his intervention for supply of water as per commitment so as to not affect its production.
Originally, as per the agreement with State government (pre-bifurcation), RINL was assured of 73 MGD for the three million tonne plant. Due to innovative initiatives in consumption of water at the stage of three million tonnes, the company is running the plant by drawing 23-25 MGD against 30 MGD from Yeleru Reservoir. The requirement will go up to 45 MGD once the expansion project is fully commissioned.
RINL officials told the government that they would need immediately 35 MGD for safe operations. “Due to poor supply of water, some of the critical operations were throttled and production got affected in recent days,” an official said.
Ironically, RINL used to face the problem of iron ore and coking coal in the past for want of captive mines. Now two more problems got added in the form of water and power shortage.
