Mumbai could get a new water resource

Currently, the city receives 3,850 MLD from seven dams. Representation Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi

The desalination project at Manori - which was initially favoured over the proposed Gargai dam, thereby preventing the axing of four lakh trees in the Tansa Wildlife Sanctuary - will supply 200 million litres per day (MLD) of water after three years, if everything goes according to plan.

If Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) officials are to be believed, the tender for the ambitious project will be floated by the end of October.

Currently, the city receives 3,850 MLD from seven dams. The desalination project has a capacity of 200 MLD that can be expanded to 400 MLD at a later stage. An official from the water project department said the work of drafting the tender is in the final stage. It will be submitted to the civic chief for approval and the tender will be floated by next month. The final dates of submission of tenders haven't been decided yet. There is no change in the capacity of the project.

"As this is a first-of-its-kind project, it took a few months to study and materialise the tender documents," said a BMC official.

The project was estimated to cost R3,500 crore in 2021, including Rs 1,600 crore for setting up the facility and R1,900 crore for maintenance of the plant for 20 years. It was initiated by the then-Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, and it was on the fast track and the detailed proposal and evaluation were completed within one and half year. The project was put on hold after the change in government in Maharashtra.

The BMC had set aside Rs 200 crore for the project in its budget for 2022-23 with the bidding supposed to be initiated by August 2022 via a global tendering system. The project, however, did not take off. In its budget for 2023-24, the BMC once again allocated Rs 200 crore but did not set any deadline. The final evaluation report was officially submitted in November 2022.

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The BMC has appointed IDE Water Technologies Ltd, an Israeli company, in February 2021 to prepare a detailed proposal. Later, in January 2022, the civic body engaged M/s SMEC India to evaluate the study and designs prepared by the Israeli firm. The report, which was supposed to be ready by June 2022, was submitted in the third week of November 2022. SMEC India has already approved the study and design submitted by IDE Water Technologies Ltd but ten months down the line, tenders are yet to be floated for the project.

The civic body is working on two projects to solve the city's water woes, one being the desalination plant and the other the Gargai dam in Palghar. While the Gargai dam can provide 440 million litres of water a day, it also puts over four lakh trees spread over 700 hectares of Tansa Wildlife Sanctuary at risk.

Rs 3,500 cr
Estimated cost of project in 2021