There are currently less than a handful of operational desalination plants in India, but a crippling water scarcity is forcing authorities to rethink how water supplies can be bolstered. While water supplies are currently devastatingly low, it is predicted that it will drop by nearly 50% per person per year between 2001 and 2050.

India’s National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) has tested and demonstrated the Low Temperature Thermal Desalination (LTTD) technology devised by the government funded Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) and the government intends to set up desalinations plant based on the technology in many coastal areas.

Harsh Vardhan, union minister of earth sciences, stated recently that the country will be mounting a massive desalination mission: “In deep south where the rivers have run dry desalination is a must. Freshwater requirement is so huge that people cannot survive.”

Water scarcity has become a common challenge in many areas in India; groundwater supplies are depleted; cities are virtually reliant on private water tanks and bottled water, and World Bank data predicts that at least 21 Indian cities will run their groundwater supplies completely dry by 2020.

With Tamil Nadu experiencing the worst drought in over 140 years, all four main reservoirs, Cholavaram, Poondi, Red Hills and Chembarambakkam are all empty.

While India does have some desalination experience, it has been on a relatively small scale compared to other nations up until now.

According to Dr Jitendra Singh, Union Minister looking after the Department of Atomic Energy, a sea water desalination plant will soon be set up in Coastal Odisha in the country’s east.

“Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) is putting up a 5000 cubic meter per day seawater desalination plant in Odisha’s coastal district of Ganjam, adjacent to Gopalpur through Memorandum of Understanding between Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) and Indian Rare Earths Limited (IREL), a Public Sector Undertaking under DAE. The site at Ganjam District, Odisha has been considered since it is located on the coast line of Bay of Bengal (only 750 meters away from shore line) and a drought prone zone facing acute water shortage,” he said.

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