TN Infra Development Board approves series of schemes

The Tamil Nadu Infrastructure Development Board (TNIDB), headed by Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, today approved a series of projects, including drinking water schemes, running into several crores of Rupees.
The second Board meeting of TNIDB chaired by her approved setting up two seawater desalination plants at an overall cost of over Rs 5,400 crore.
The board approved setting up of two Sea Water Reverse Osmosis (SWRO) desalination plants with a capacity of 400 MLD and 150 MLD to be located at Perur and Nemmeli, respectively, a state government release here said.
"The 400 MLD desalination plant at Perur would be built at a cost of about Rs 4,070 crore while the project cost for the 150 MLD plant at Nemmeli would be about Rs 1,371 crore. Both these projects would be built on Design-Build-Operate (DBO) basis," it said.

These schemes would esnure supply of high quality drinking water to Chennai even during the dry season, it said adding Central grant was being sought for the project.
Further, it okayed a Rs 556.57 crore towards improving and revamping present feeder mains and distribution system in Coimbatore to provide "24X7" water supply to 1.5 lakh households.

It will be implemented on a Build-Transfer-Operate basis under the public private partnership mode with an innovative staggered annuity model of financing, it added.
Reviewing the progress of various infrastructure projects and initiatives by different departments, the Board noted that considerable progress has been made on 217 projects/programmes identified under the second phase of Vision Tamil Nadu 2023.

Among others, the Board approved the project structure for the proposed Madurai-Thoothukudi Industrial (MTI) Corridor, in which 29 projects covering the southern districts of Madurai, Sivaganga, Virudunagar,Thoothukudi, Tirunelveli, Kanyakumari and Ramanathapuram have been planned.
The total outlay envisaged for this mega project is about Rs 1,83,819 crore. The core nodes of development would be spread across 4 Manufacturing and Business Investment Regions (MBIR), 2 Manufacturing and Business Investment Areas (MBIA), 1 Agri Business Investment Region (ABIR), 2 Knowledge Hubs and 3 Special Tourism Investment Zones, it said.