BARC to help Mumbai set up desalination plant

Civic authorities in India's financial capital Mumbai have decided to appoint premier state-run atomic agency, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) as consultant in a project that seeks to set up the city's first sea water desalination plant.

BARC, which already desalinates water for its captive consumption, will provide technical expertise to the city for the project that will likely help tackle water crisis in the city.

Mumbai, which is the capital of India's western state of Maharashtra, has been facing severe water scarcity and local authorities have been resorting to a host of measures, including water rationing to curb rising demand for the resource. The city has also been rationing water to bring down its usage.

The city's main civic body, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has also charted plans to go for public-private partnership to set up desalination plants to resolve the city's water woes in the coming years.

BARC has already helped Chennai, the capital city of Tamil Nadu state in setting up a 10 million litres of day (MLD) desalination plant and another at Kalpakkam with an installed capacity of 6.5 MLD.

For Mumbai, BARC plans to consult the civic authorities on the type of technology to be deployed at the plant that would be suitable for desalinating water on large scale. BARC is also expected to guide Mumbai civic authorities on the feasibility and the survey reports.

The proposed project has already attracted the attention of the private sector and even as the BMC has identified areas where it may set up the desalination plants, as many as 18 international and local companies have submitted expressions of interest to carry out a feasibility study. The companies would have the mandate to set up plants with a capacity of 10 MLD at various places near the coastline.