Chennai:

 In a little over a fortnight, Chennaiites will get desalinated water from the city’s second desalination plant dedicated to public use by chief minister J Jayalaithaa on Friday.

Senior government sources told Deccan Chronicle that water from the 100mld desalination plant constructed at a cost of Rs 821.14 crore would reach residents of Tiruvanmiyur, Velachery and Pallipattu besides IT companies in another three weeks.

By then, the pipe laid for over 60km will be flushed and kept ready for conveying water to the city from Nemmeli, sources added.

Unlike the 100mld Minjur desalination plant constructed on DBOOT (design, build, operate and transfer) basis with private partnership, Chennai metro water has built the Nemmeli plant indigenously. The Nemmeli plant has also proved to be relatively cost effective, as it requires only Rs  21 to treat one kiloliter of seawater, while the same costs `48.66 per kiloliter in Minjur.

The Nemmeli plant also will also have an edge over the Minjur plant in terms of technology, particularly in respect of filtering and treatment. The plant is  equipped with pressure filters comprising disc and ultra filters that will filter particles as tiny as 0.01micron ahead of the reverse osmosis system that filters chemicals, salts and particles 1/100th of the size smaller than the particles that escape the pressure filters. Breaking silence on the inadvertent delay in the project completion, government sources attributed the delay to a turbulent sea and said they only had a four-month window period from January to April and they had to bury the inlet and outlet pipes in the seabed to a length of one km and 650 meters. The designers initially considered partial burying and later settled to complete burial of the inlet and outlet pipes. The plant takes in 265mld from the sea and send 100mld of desalinated water to the city.

source:  http://www.DeccanChronicle.com / Home> News> Current Affairs / DC / February 23rd, 2013