Bharuch: Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel will inaugurate the country’s first industrial purpose water desalination plant today at Dahej. Then chief minister, Vijay Rupani, had laid the foundation stone for the 100 MLD facility 30 months ago.

The current facilities that provide uninterrupted water supply to the industrial settlements of Dahej have a capacity of 454 MLD. However, the full development of the PCPIR settlements is likely to increase the need for water in Dahej to 1,000 MLD.

The desalination plant with 100 MLD capacity will be an alternative source to purify sea water into usable water in order to meet the growing need of industries in Dahej. The facility has come up in 25 acres of land at a cost of Rs 881 crore. Once this facility starts functioning, the total quantity of water available to industries of Dahej will increase to 555 MLD. Water emerging out of this desalination facility will be of the same quality as Narmada river water.

Compared with other plants, the desalination facility at Dahej has an extra Reverse Osmosis stage to purify sea water considering the fact that the water in Dahej’s sea has lot of turbidity and has higher TDS as well as chloride content.

Before entering the desalination facility, the sea water will be allowed to collect at a ‘settling pond’ which has come up in 20 acres. The desalination plant has been developed by Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC).  DeshGujarat