Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Thursday, Jul 09, 2009
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Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Thursday, Jul 09, 2009 ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version | Audio | Blogs |
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Industry & Economy
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Water States - Tamil Nadu Delay-hit desalination project wants to buy sea water from CPCL 
The pumping station of the sea water desalination plant constructed by CPCL was inaugurated last week – R. Ragu M. Ramesh Chennai, July 8 Hit by delays in executing its desalination project, Chennai Water Desalination Ltd (CWDL) has requested Chennai Petroleum Corporation Ltd to supply sea water to it, it is reliably learnt. CWDL is a special-purpose vehicle promoted by IVRCL Infrastructures & Projects Limited and Spain’s Befesa Construction Tecnologia Ambiental, with 75 per cent and 25 per cent equity, respectively. The company was set up to design, construct, operate and maintain a seawater desalination plant of 100 million litres per day capacity. CAUSE OF DELAYSThe company has suffered huge delays in execution; it was to have gone on stream in June 2008. Correspondingly, the cost of the project has also gone up from Rs 470 crore when conceived, to Rs 550 crore now. The delays have been attributed to “unanticipated technical bottlenecks, mainly pertaining to marine works”. The company has said that the delays happened due to a cyclonic storm last November . However, observers of the project say that cyclone had nothing to do with the delays and that the company could not erect a marine concrete structure, called ‘velocity cap’, from which sea water would be drawn. As a result, today, while CWDL’s reverse osmosis plant is ready, the project is unable to begin water production because the sea-water-intake facilities are not yet in place. When the plant goes on stream, it is expected to substantially augment water supply to Chennai, which consumes about 350 million litres of water a day. Against this backdrop, CWDL has written to Chennai Petroleum to supply sea water. Chennai Petroleum has just commissioned its 27 million-litre-a-day (5.8 million gallons a day) desalination plant, meant for captive use. Its plant, however, is designed for 10 million gallons a day. CWDL wants to build a branch pipeline, T-ing off Chennai Petroleum’s pipeline and leading to its RO plant. Chennai Petroleum declined an official comment on it, but it is learnt that the matter is under consideration. Water production from the RO plant is quite inexpensive. For example, water from Chennai Petro’s desalination plant will cost the company 3 paise a litre. More Stories on : Water | Tamil Nadu | Urban Development
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