In February 2021, Mint reported that the standing committee of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had approved in principle a desalination plant of 200 million litres a day (200,000 m³/d). It set aside 5.5 crore rupees for consultants to draft the project report, plus 40 lakh for tender documents. The BMC put capital cost at 1,600 crore rupees and 20 years of operation at 1,920 crore. The plan rested on an unsolicited offer by IDE Water Technologies, to be tendered under a Swiss challenge model. Manori was the intended site.
The report showed Mumbai moving from site search to formal project preparation. The opposition BJP questioned the need, citing leakage losses of 900 million litres in the city network.
Source: Mint