A move to set up a desalination plant in the city has inched forward with a government owned petrochemical company coming forward for it even as a team of Mangaluru City Corporation is set to visit Chennai next month to study the functioning of such a plant in the Eastern coast.

According to Gokuldas Nayk, Joint Director, District Industries Centre, and Nodal Officer for facilitating the setting up of the plant, Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) had submitted a proposal to the State government to this effect.

He told The Hindu that the MRPL had proposed to set up 50 MLD (million litre per day) capacity plant at an estimated cost of Rs. 200 crores. It had sought 10 acres for it in Tannirbavi area. A proposal to this had been submitted to Karnataka Udyog Mitra.

Mr. Nayak said that the MRPL had proposed to expand its refinery by enhancing its production capacity from the present 15 million metric tones (MMT) to 18 MMT with the expansion by 2020. Hence it required more water.

He said that the company now used 5 MGD (million gallons a day) of treated sewage water from Kavoor sewage treatment plant of the city corporation.

Mr. Nayak who is also the Deputy Commissioner (administration) at the corporation said that the team of the corporation would study the functioning of a desalination plant in Chennai supplying drinking water for parts of the Eastern city, next month.

Minister for Urban Development and Haj R. Roshan Baig had repeatedly suggested the corporation to take a lead in setting up a desalination plant in Mangaluru on the lines of Chennai. The minister had asked the corporation to take a team to Chennai for study purpose. He suggested that such plants could meet industrial needs in the city.

Incidentally it was acute water shortage in the city in the summer of 2016 had made the then Deputy Commissioner A. B. Ibrahim to make a move for setting up a desalination plant in the city to meet both industrial and drinking water needs. A meeting on the same had decided to form a special purpose vehicle (which is a company) for the purpose. (EOM)