Next JNNURM hope is also water supply
Kavitha Iyer
Corporator-hopefuls at the recent municipal elections were not the only ones who believed that water will be the next big battle-turf for Mumbai. For, alongside the Centre’s nod for the Middle Vaitarna Water Supply project, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation is
also nudging its next set of projects submitted for funding under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). And all of these aim at improving water supply to the financial capital.
Other projects recommended by the state-level steering committee for
assistance under JNNURM include the Verawali to Adarsh Nagar tunnel (Rs 157
crore), the Malabar Hill to Cross Maidan tunnel (Rs 102 crore) and the
Ruparel College to Marol tunnel (Rs 315 crore). “The technical okays have
been received for the tunnel projects,” said Additional Municipal
Commissioner Manu Kumar Srivastava. The proposals will next go to the
Central Sanctioning and Monitoring Committee.
One more project recommended by the state-level steering committee is for
the replacement and rehabilitation of old pipelines, pegged at Rs 253 crore.
Meanwhile, for a thirsty city with a shortfall of 900 million litres of
water a day (mld), international tenders have already been floated for
civil, mechanical and electrical works at the 900 mld water treatment plant
at Bhandup to be constructed as a priority work under the Middle Vaitarna
Water Supply Project. The qualifying criteria are steep-contractors must
have designed and commissioned similar plants with a capacity of at least
450 million litres a day.
The to-be-constructed dam across the Vaitarna has been designed by the
Central Design Organisation, Nashik. They were appointed to prepare the
design for the dam, the cost estimates and for carrying out detailed
engineering studies. Also, a consortium led by Mott MacDonald is the project
management consultant for the construction of an intake tower at Modaksagar
involving complex hydraulics, for a 7.5-km underground tunnel as well as for
the pumping station and the water treatment plant.
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