In June 2019, The New Indian Express reported that Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami had laid the foundation stone for Chennai's new 150,000 m³/day desalination plant at Nemmeli. The project cost Rs 1,259 crore; Tamil Nadu borrowed Rs 700 crore of it from Germany's KfW, while the central government covered the remainder, partly through the AMRUT programme. From December 2021 the plant was to serve about 900,000 people in the south of the city. The budget for the larger Perur scheme rose to Rs 6,078 crore, mostly funded by JICA.
The report showed how Chennai was building its drinking water supply step by step on seawater, drawing development lenders from Germany and Japan into the financing.
Source: The New Indian Express