Karnataka State, Southwest India, is proposing to build four new desalination plants with IDE Technology India and Indian firm Vagas, as part of a project to build new city Kolar Gold Fields, reports New Indian Express.
The proposed desalination programme comprises an INR 2,533.61 crore ($380 million) plant at Mangaluru, a $110 million plant at Udupi, one of $23 million at Kundapura, and at Saligrama, a $12 million plant. The plants will be supplied by the Yettinahole Integrated Drinking Water Project/ Netravati River Diversion Project, a controversial scheme to divert the west-flowing River Netravati eastwards.
The new city is proposed to be built on land belonging to Bharat Gold Mines, and is intended to ease pressure on Karnataka’s capital city Bengaluru. The state will issue global tenders for a detailed report on the new city project, and for design work.
IDE is rapidly building its presence in Southern India. In January, it signed a memorandum of understanding with the government of Visakhapatnam district, in Andhra Pradesh State, for a 100,000 m3/d desalination plant near Pudimadaka, worth $105 million, The Hindu reported.
IDE began operating India’s first large desalination plant in Chennai, Tamil Nadu State, in 2013.
A new desalination plant project in Chennai was set back in February 2017, when the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change deferred coastal regulation zone clearance, and requested more information. Several tenders for the plant were issued by Metrowater, Chennai’s water authority, in November 2016.