Treated water from the upcoming desalination plant in Nemmeli along East Coast Road will be supplied from September.
Stating this at a press briefing here on Friday, managing director of VA Tech Wabag, Rajiv Mittal, said around 88 per cent of the engineering, procurement and construction work on the plant had been completed. The company expects to start billing the Chennai Metrowater, which had entrusted the project to the private firm, for operation and maintenance (O&M) from the third quarter of the current fiscal.
“We will have a turnover of Rs. 70 crore from the O&M every year for the next seven years. We will be in charge of the O&M for seven years,” he said. The plant would be ready mechanically in a couple of months. “It would also take us two months for the flushing operations before we start drawing raw water,” he said.
Once commissioned, this would be second desalination plant with a capacity to treat 100 million litres of water a day. The foundation stone was laid by former Deputy Chief Minister M.K. Stalin in February 2010. The Rs. 533.38 crore project will supply water to the southern parts of the city, including those recently merged under the Chennai Corporation.
The production cost of treated water at the Nemmeli plant will work out to Rs. 30 per kilolitre.
