Chief Minister M.K. Stalin on Monday through video conferencing laid the foundation stone for a new desalination plant to come up at Perur on East Coast Road near here at a cost of ₹4,276.44 crore with a capacity to treat 400 million litres of seawater per day. Once set up, the plant will be the biggest of its kind in Southeast Asia, according to an official release.
The project, to be executed by the Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (CMWSSB) with funding support from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), will be completed by December 2026. The plant will cater to 22.67 lakh people in areas falling under the Tambaram Corporation, Greater Chennai Corporation and 20 village panchayats near the city.
The dissolved air flotation and dual media filters to be used in the plant will be of a more advanced design than what is normally used in other desalination plants. The project will involve laying high density polyethylene (HDPE) pipes at sea for about 1.15 km and pipes for 59 km till Porur on land to carry the treated water.
This will be the fourth desalination plant to come up around Chennai. The project to set up the first one, with a capacity to treat 100 million litre seawater per day, in Minjur was started in February 2007, when Mr. Stalin was the Rural Development and Local Administration Minister in the then DMK government, and completed in July 2020. This catered to around 10 lakh people in the areas of north Chennai.
The second desalination plant, with a capacity of 100 million litre per day, was set up in Nemmeli, which is now catering to around 9 lakh people in the areas of south Chennai. The work on the third desalination plant, with a capacity of 150 million litre per day, is in final stages and will become operational soon. It will cater to around 9 lakh people in areas including Ullagaram-Puzhuthivakkam, Velachery, Madipakkam, Kovilambakkam, Nanmangalam, Kilkattalai, Moovarasampettai, and Pallavaram.
Minister for Municipal Administration K.N. Nehru, Chief Secretary Shiv Das Meena, Municipal Administration and Water Supply Department D. Karthikeyan, CMWSSB Managing Director R. Kirlosh Kumar, Consul-General of Japan in Chennai TAGA Masayuki, Chief Representative of JICA India Office SAITO Mitsunori, and Chairman of VA Tech WABAG Rajiv Mittal participated.
