Chennai, Jan 5 (IANS) Water solutions company Va Tech Wabag has bagged a Rs.1,033-crore order to design, erect and operate a desalination plant from Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board, commonly known as Chennai Metro Water.
“We will design, build and operate the plant for seven years. The plant capacity will be 100 million litres per day and sea water will be converted into drinking water, using reverse osmosis technology,” company managing director Rajiv Mittal said here Tuesday.

The plant will come up on 40 acres at Nemmeli near here.

The contract value is divided into two parts — Rs.533 crore towards design and building of the plant, and Rs.500 crore as operation and maintenance charges spread over seven years.

The Rs.1,200-crore Va Tech Wabag has tied up with IDE Technologies of Israel for the reverse osmosis technology and bid for the contract together.

“IDE Technologies is into this space and has the experience of setting up very large-sized desalination plants. We tied up with it as we found its technology is less power-intensive,” Mittal told IANS.

According to company officials, the desalination plant will consume around 16 MW of power per day, which will be supplied from a sub-station that the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board will set up.

“There will not be any sludge generated during the desalination process as no chemicals will be used. The residual water with heavy concentration of salt will be discharged into the sea as per norms,” Mittal said.

According to him, the residual water can be used by salt manufacturers.

The Nemmeli desalination plant will be the city’s second, with the first coming up at Minjur in north Chennai.