You never thought this day would come. But it will, for sure. Year 2011 will mark that day when citizens of Bangalore will start consuming waste water that has been recycled.

With the ministry of Urban Development Department having approved this, Rs 473 crore project under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JN-NURM), in the third week of January, BWSSB is all set to execute this ambitious project, starting April.

While the city's population has been increasing at a scary pace, proposed BDA and BMRDA Layouts along with the international airport has resulted in BWSSB opting for this measure. While the concept of rain water harvesting and ground water recharge has made little impact, underground water has been depleting continuously.

Also, since there is a ceiling on the amount of water that can be drawn from Cauvery, Bangalore now has to resort to depending on Arkavathy, the next source of water.

Under this project, two 135-145 MLD treatment plants will be set up by the Board, where waste water will be drawn from Vrishabhavati Valley and treated several times, before it is fit for drinking.

According to officials, the first plant will come up at Amlapura near Mysore Road. Here, the first level of purification will take place along with chlorination. This water will then be pumped across a distance of 25 km to another plant near Tavarekere, on the banks of river Arkavathy.

An ultrafiltration plant of the same capacity will be installed here, where water will be purified completely, before it will be let out into the Arkavathy river course to join the TG Halli reservoir.

BWSSB is in the process of acquiring about 25 acres of land at Amlapura from the Karnataka Housing Board at a cost of Rs 35 crore. While the Board has acquired about six acres of land for the second plant, another nine acres is being bought from private land holders.

Officials said that a detailed design project would be submitted by the same consortium working on the Cauvery Phase II project, on April 15. "Once this is cleared, tenders will be called for construction of the plants by private stakeholders.

Once the selected agency submits its project report, then the Board will take sometime to review the same. By October, works on the project should begin, and by October 2011 the project will be commissioned," officials added.


Source: TNN