Delhi government to set up RO plants at places with saline water

NEW DELHI:  The Delhi government is planning to install reverse osmosis (RO) plants in areas where groundwater level is shallow but unusable due to high salinity, hardness and high levels of total dissolved solids (TDS). 

The government will use state-of-the-art RO systems which will have 80 per cent water recovery rate.

In the first phase, RO plants with a total capacity of 363 million litres per day (MLD) will be installed at strategic points where surplus groundwater is available.

Raw water will be supplied from the groundwater in these RO plants, after which purified water will be supplied to the households. 

“Delhi government is targeting to install these RO plants only in those areas where surplus groundwater is available but its poor quality makes it unfit for use. For instance, water in the Najafgarh area is available just at the depth of 2-3 metres, however, it is high in salinity. Okhla, Dwarka, Nilothi-Nangloi, Chilla and Najafgarh will be targeted in the first phase of this project. The project is aimed to be completed within 1 year,” said a statement.

The locations of projects are strategically selected so that the existing conveyance system can be used, which will save the huge cost of laying pipelines. 

To make the project cost-effective, the government will be following a model of staggered payment where the private investors will bear a major share of expenditure of setting up the RO plant and DJB will buy clean drinking water at a fixed rate.