By John — Desalination News
Fisherfolk groups and coastal residents in Mumbai’s western suburbs are organizing a march for October 19 against the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s planned desalination plant at Band Dongar in Manori, reviving a campaign against the project that dates back to 2021 and stalled during the pandemic.
The Manori desalination plant, one of the largest such projects under development in India, carries an estimated total cost of ₹11,166.17 crore, of which roughly ₹4,077 crore is earmarked for construction and the remainder for twenty years of operations and maintenance. The plant is designed to produce 200 million litres of water a day initially, with capacity to expand to 400 million litres a day, and is intended to help close a supply gap in a city where consumption runs to around 4,000 million litres a day against a shortfall estimated at 565 million litres. Contractor GVPR Engineers Ltd is building the facility, which the BMC expects to bring online by 2029. The project also includes a 7.2-kilometre underground tunnel linking Manori to Charkop and Mahavir Nagar in Kandivali, running partly beneath Gorai Creek.
The planned march is being organized by the Maharashtra Machhimar Kruti Samiti, a fishworkers’ rights group, together with the Mobai Gaothan Panchayat, which represents Mumbai’s traditional fishing and coastal villages, and is expected to draw residents from Manori, Uttan, Bhayandar and Vasai. Their objections center on the physical footprint of the plant, which they say will require cutting into a coastal hillside, and on the discharge of concentrated brine into the sea, which they argue threatens marine life and the livelihoods of local fishing communities. Protesters have also pointed to the recent felling of date palms at the site as evidence the project is proceeding without adequate community consultation.
“The plant will ruin the beautiful hill and wastewater from it will destroy marine life,” said Walter Murzello, a trustee of the Mobai Gaothan Panchayat. Manori resident Lourdes D’Souza echoed the concern, saying the hill “should not be destroyed” and warning the project “will affect the livelihood of the fishing community.”
The BMC has defended the project’s environmental clearances, with an official saying “all requisite clearances have been obtained” and that treated waste “will be discharged into the deep sea,” a standard approach intended to dilute brine concentration away from sensitive coastal habitats. City officials have framed the plant as a necessary hedge against Mumbai’s growing water stress, which is expected to intensify as the metropolitan region’s population continues to grow and existing reservoir-fed supply comes under greater strain from erratic monsoon patterns.
The Manori project is one of several large seawater desalination schemes now moving through planning and construction across India’s coastal cities, reflecting a broader shift toward the technology as a supplement to conventional surface water sources. Whether the October 19 march will affect the project’s timeline remains to be seen, but it adds Manori to a growing list of desalination developments worldwide, from Australia to the Gulf, where community opposition over marine and coastal impact has become a recurring feature of project execution.
(Source: Free Press Journal) (Source: Hindustan Times)