MRPL interest may make city ’Desalination plant’ a reality.

Mangalore Today News Network

Mangaluru, Jan 30, 2017: Reports state that according to Gokuldas Nayak, Joint Director, District Industries Centre, and Nodal Officer for facilitating the setting up of the plant, the MRPL, Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd. had submitted a proposal to the State government to this effect.

Plans to set up a desalination plant in the city has inched forward with a government-owned petrochemical company coming forward for it even as a team of MCC, Mangaluru City Corporation is set to visit Chennai next month to study the functioning of such a plant in the eastern coast.

Gokuldas Nayak is reported to have said that MRPL had proposed to set up a 50 MLD (million litre per day) capacity plant at an estimated cost of Rs. 200 crore. It had sought 10 acres for it in Tannirbavi area. A proposal to this has been submitted to the Karnataka Udyog Mitra.  Nayak also has said that MRPL has proposed to expand its refinery by enhancing its production capacity from the present 15 million metric tones (MMT) to 18 MMT with the expansion by 2020. Hence it has need of more water.

The Director said that the company now used 5 MGD (million gallons a day) of treated sewage water from the Kavoor sewage treatment plant of the city corporation. Nayak, who is also the Deputy Commissioner (administration) at the corporation, said that the team of the corporation would study the functioning of a desalination plant in Chennai supplying drinking water to parts of the eastern city, next month.  Minister for Urban Development and Haj R. Roshan Baig had repeatedly suggested to the corporation to take a lead in setting up a desalination plant in Mangaluru on the lines of Chennai.

The Minister had asked the corporation to take a team to Chennai for the study purpose. He suggested that such plants could meet the industrial needs in the city.

Incidentally, it was acute water shortage in the city in the summer of 2016 that had made the then DK DC Adoor  B. Ibrahim to make a move for setting up a desalination plant in the city to meet both industrial and drinking water needs. A meeting on the same had decided to form a special purpose vehicle,  a company,  for the purpose.

Govt’s experts not in sight : 

Urban Development Minister R. Roshan Baig was supposed to bring experts to the city this month to explore the possibility of setting up a desalination plant on a pilot basis. But as of now they are not heared of.  The Minister, after a city corporation meeting here on January 7, told media that the experts would be in the city within a fortnight. He had said that the company representatives had made a presentation before him in Bengaluru on producing sweet water from salt water through the desalination plant. The officials of the Karnataka Urban Water Supply and Drainage Board were also convinced about it. The government would not invest any money. The plant could be set up by private companies and supplied to industries and domestic purpose like in Chennai.

Earlier, in May 2016 at a meeting called by the then DC Adoor B. Ibrahim, Sridhar, a representative from Mumbai-based Ion Exchange (India) Ltd., a company with expertise in setting up desalination plants, had said that the operating cost of producing a kilolitre of water worked out to around Rs. 40. At present, the MCC was providing water for industrial use at Rs. 60 per kilolitre.