Excess Koyna water to be used for city?

MUMBAI: Adding another flip-flop to the issue, the state government has now said that it will consider the possibility of bringing the excess water diverted from

MUMBAI: Adding another flip-flop to the issue, the state government has now said that it will consider the possibility of bringing the excess water diverted from Koyna dam to Mumbai.

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The government announced this on Wednesday during a calling attention motion in the legislative assembly.

This comes after the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had, in 2013, scrapped its initial plans to source this water, calling it “unfeasible”.

Now, the state government said it had conducted a new prefeasibility report which indicated the possibility.

“We have undertaken this new report which has shown that it is possible to execute this project. Hence, the state government is keen on ensuring that we go ahead with this and bring water to Mumbai,” said Vijay Shivtare, minister of state for water resources.

According to Shivtare, a preliminary estimate showed that the government might be able to tap into at least 67.05 thousand million cubic feet of water annually for the city. “Right now, this water is not being used at all and, in that sense, goes waste. Hence, we will be able to use it better by bringing it to Mumbai,” he added.

However, the government might have to pay a price for the dilly-dallying. The minister said that the cost of the project had doubled from Rs2,200 crore (in 2009) to Rs5,000 crore at current rates. “However, we are pushing for the Centre to recognize this as a national project so that we can get central funding,” he said.