The Nemmeli desalination plant has touched its full capacity generation of 100 million litres a day (MLD) in treating seawater. This has come at a time when the northeast monsoon is in deficit and the storage in the city’s reservoirs is dwindling.
For the past few days, areas in south Chennai including Velachery, Thiruvanmiyur and Pallipattu, have been receiving 100 MLD of water from this plant on East Coast Road.
According to a press release from Chennai Metrowater, the generation was increased after Chief Minister Jayalalithaa conducted a review of the drinking water situation in the city.
The desalination plants in Nemmeli and Minjur and the new Veeranam project contribute more than 60 per cent of the city’s supply, which is 575 MLD at present. The Nemmeli plant’s contribution to this has gone up from 80 to 100 MLD.
The four reservoirs that supply water to the city — Poondi, Red Hills, Cholavaram and Chembarambakkam — have a storage of only 3,570 million cubic feet (mcft), much lower than their capacity of 11,057 mcft.
The city’s third desalination plant will come up in Perur. A detailed project report is in progress for this, and the draft final report is likely to be ready in a month. Perur is also on ECR, north of Nemmeli.
On completion, water from this plant will augment supply to the extended areas of the Chennai Corporation.
Nemmeli is soon to get another desalination plant with a capacity of 150 million litres per day (MLD) at a cost of Rs. 1,000 crore. This will come up on the 10.50-acre plot of vacant land near the existing plant.
