- Worldwide, desalination is seen as one possible answer to stave off water crisis.
- Recently, Maharashtra announced the setting up of a desalination plant in Mumbai, becoming the fourth state in the country to experiment with the idea.
What are desalination plants?
- A desalination plant turns salt water into water that is fit to drink.
- The most commonly used technology used for the process is reverse osmosis where an external pressure is applied to push solvents from an area of high-solute concentration to an area of low-solute concentration through a membrane.
- The microscopic pores in the membranes allow water molecules through but leave salt and most other impurities behind, releasing clean water from the other side.
- These plants are mostly set up in areas that have access to sea water.
How widely is this technology used in India?
- Desalination has largely been limited to affluent countries in the Middle East and has recently started making inroads in parts of the United States and Australia.
- In India, Tamil Nadu has been the pioneer in using this technology, setting up two desalination plants near Chennai in 2010 and then 2013. The two plants supply 100 million litres a day (MLD) each to Chennai. Two more plants are expected to be set up in Chennai. The other states that have proposed these plants are Gujarat, which has announced to set up a 100 MLD RO plant at the Jodiya coast in Jamnagar district.
- There are also proposals to set up desalination plants in Dwarka, Kutch, Dahej, Somnath, Bhavnagar and Pipavav, which are all coastal areas in Gujarat. Andhra Pradesh, too, has plans of setting up a plant.
What is the need to set up a desalination plant in Mumbai?
- According to the BMC’s projection, the population of Mumbai is anticipated to touch 1.72 crore by 2041 and accordingly, the projected water demand would be 6424 MLD by then.
- Currently, BMC supplies 3850 MLD as against the requirement of 4200 MLD each day. In 2007, a state government-appointed high-level committee had suggested setting up desalination plants in Mumbai, however, over the years the authorities have avoided building the project claiming that the cost is prohibitive.
- However, with the city’s water problems on the rise owing to burgeoning population, Maharashtra government has given the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation the go-ahead for the project. The project is proposed to be set up on 25 to 30 acres of land at Manori and will have a capacity of 200 MLD. It will take about two and a half to three years to complete.
Is it ecologically safe?
- The high cost of setting up and running a desalination plant is one reason why the Maharashtra government has over the last decade been hesitant in building such a plant.
- Desalination is an expensive way of generating drinking water as it requires a high amount of energy. The other problem is the disposal of the byproduct — highly concentrated brine — of the desalination process.
- While in most places brine is pumped back into the sea, there have been rising complaints that it ends up severely damaging the local ecology around the plant.
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Source: Indian Express