Gandhinagar: A desalination plant with capacity to convert 10 crore litre sea water into potable water daily will be operational at Jodiya in district Jamnagar. Memorandum for Understanding(MoU) for same was signed today between Gujarat Water Infrastructure Ltd and Essel Infra projects Ltd in capital Gandhinagar in presence of Chief Minister Vijay Rupani.

The Chief Minister on this occasion stressed on maximum use of technology to remove scarcity situation.

Rupani said, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lay foundation stone for desalination project at Jodiya. He said Gujarat is only second to Tamil Nadu in India to initiate such project. Gujarat has long coastal line.

Rupani said it is his dream to resolve the issue of water permanently in Gujarat and give water security to the State.

He said, ‘the issue of water has always been critical for Gujarat. With Narmada waters, we have been able to resolve this issue majorly, but we need to bring in variety of water sources. We need to create new sources. The Government of Gujarat completed Sardar Sarovar Narmada project and also started huge movement of ground water recharging in the past’.

He said the State government will also start new desalination plants at Porbandar, Dwarka, Veraval and Ghogha in future for which site survey, feasibility study and techno economical study will begin soon.

‘I want to see green farms in Kutch, Patan and Banakantha’s border areas too,’ he said adding that smaller capacity desalination plants are also being planned in border area.

He added that desalination plants will be set up at Dahej and Gandhidham by Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation(GIDC) to satisfy the needs of water in industries.

‘Desalination plants of Gujarat will also be a destination to study like Dhanki pumping station of Narmada project,’ he further added.

Speaking on this occasion, senior govt. official JP Gupta said, desalination plants will be able to satisfy the needs of water in areas located away from Narmada project’s catchment areas.

More details of the project shared by the State govt.

– It will be a 100 MLD (daily 10 crore litre capacity) sea water desalination plant.

– A pipeline connecting sea to desalination plant, pumping machinery, 20 ml(2 crore litre) RCC sump.

– Available TDS at Gujarat coast is 35,000 to 60,000 PPM. RO technology will be used to bring sea water from intek(in sea) to desalination plant through a pipe line.

– After filtration and chemical process to maintain PH value, sea water will be kept in settlement tank and later passed through sand filter before going through reverse osmosis membrane(theme film acetate membranes) at the pressure of 70 kg/cm square. With this all dissolved brackishness will go.

– Demineralized water will pass through mineralization process with addition of elements such as calcium and magnesium. With this, potable water of less than 500 TDS will be achieved. It will be stored in a water tank.

– Daily 10 crore litre water will be brought to Hirapar from Jodiya via pipeline. It will be supplied to rural areas of Morbi district and cities of Rajkot and Jamnagar through water supply grid network.

– With fresh addition of 10 crore litre per day in water supply grid, water security will increase in Rajkot and Jamnagar districts.

– Pilot project at Jodiya will come up under Public Private Partnership(PPP) model at a cost of Rs 700 crore. MoU for this project was today signed between Gujarat Water Infrastructure Ltd, Essel Infra Project Ltd Mumbai and Ebinsa Infrastructure Medi Ambient.

– Financial responsibility for setting up this project and associated works will be with agency, and therefore, the State government will not have to bear any financial burden.

– Construction of this plant will be completed in 30-month period, and daily 10 crore litre water supply will commence from year 2021-22.

– Concession period of this project is 25 years.

Report based on Essel Infra’s note

Gandhinagar: Gujarat Water Infrastructure Limited today signed the concession agreement with Essel Infraprojects Ltd , an enterprise of Dr. Subhash Chandra led Essel Group for Design, Build, Finance, Operate and Transfer (DBFOT) basis of 100 MLD Desalination Plant, Jodiya, Jamnagar District for conversion of sea water to drinking water.

Essel Infra will develop the project and will take technology from Abengoa of Spain who is a world leader in water desalination technology.

This is the largest PPP investment in water desalination in the country and plant will be ready in thirty months.

Plant will supply 10 Cr. litre per day of treated high quality water to water grid network of Gujarat for next 25 years. It will have 20 million liters storage also . It can supply water without any interruption across the year with a high availability of 95% or more. Thus this plant will provide complete water security against weather conditions and other natural interruptions. Its the largest PPP investment of its type for a SWRO Water Desalination Project in India with Project cost of Rs 1000 crore. Gujarat has only 2% of the water resources of India but have 5% of the country’s population.

This state of the art, fully automatic plant will use the proven world class technology of sea water Reverse osmosis and the plant will convert the sea water to drinking water quality as per stringent Indian quality standards. Such technology solutions are used world over to ensure uninterrupted water supply not only in water scare countries of Middle East but also in Japan, Europe and America.

This is a proven technology,which works on the principles of reverse osmosis using high pressure of 80 Bar and passing seawater thrrough RO membrane. Treated water from such plant are normally even better then drinking grade water. Plant operates on electricity.

Currently, the supply of drinking water in that region is through pumping of Narmada Water, availability of which depends on weather conditions. Work on the design of the project has already been started and land has also been handed over to the developer.

This project is a one of its kind in India in which end to end Design, Funding, Building and operations maintenance for 25 years will be undertaken by Essel group. Even the sourcing of electricity will also be responsibility of project developer and Government will only pay for treated water of quality standards.

Such model can bring in large private sector investment in water sector and can generate billion of liters of water across the coastline of country. It can remove the scarcity of the water not only in Gujarat but also in other parts of India. Gujarat has taken this lead which can become a role model for other states soon, a release by the Essel group said.

Essel Infra projects Ltd is also working to developing sewage water treatment plant for city of Varanasi under clean Ganga program besides the water distribution in two cities.

DeshGujarat