Rs 1,000 cr desalination plant planned for Chennai

It will benefit over 646,000 people in southern areas of the city, several of which are recently brought under the expanded Chennai Corporation ambit

In a bid to augment drinking water supply to Chennaites, the Tamil Nadu government on Tuesday announced setting up of a desalination plant with a capacity to produce 150 million litre per day at a cost of Rs 1,000 crore.

The plant would come up on over 10.50 acre, at present lying vacant adjacent to the existing desalination plant in Nemmeli along the East Coast Road, chief minister J Jayalalithaa said in a suo motu statement in the Assembly.

It would benefit over 646,000 people in the southern areas of the city, several of which were recently brought under the expanded Chennai Corporation ambit. Jayalalithaa also said it had been decided to set up another desalination plant with a capacity of 200 million litre at Pattipulam near here, in four years. It can be expanded up to 400 million litre later.

Jayalalithaa said Alandur, Perungudi, Kottivakkam, Puzhuthivakkam, Pallikaranai, Madipakkam, Sholinganallur, Karapakkam, Neelangarai, Injambakkam, Chemmencherry, Uthandi, Okkiyam-Thuraipakkam and other southern areas of Chennai would be covered by the proposed plant at Nemmeli.