As the mercury soars and district faces acute drinking water scarcity, the district administration is planning to launch “Rev-erse Osmosis project” to mitigate the water woes.
According to Ernaku-lam district collector P.I. Sheikh Pareeth, Reverse Osmosis (RO) would be set up on an experimental basis by exploiting the water sources in the abandoned stone quarries in the district.
“We are planning to implement the RO water treatment plant in some panchayats on an experimental basis. If successful, such plants will be set up in the areas found suitable for the process,” said Pareeth, who initiated the project.
RO is a water filtering method in which contaminated water gets purified when it is pumped at high pressure through several membranes.
Though this technology is deployed in several water bottling plants in the state, this is the first time in the state that the project will be establis-hed at the government level.
According to the collector, 40,000 litres of water could be treated from a single plant in a day. It will cost around Rs 2 lakh for establishing an RO water treatment plant.
“The abandoned quarries can be used for rain water harvesting and we can set up RO water treatment plants there. The purified water would be supplied in lorries or pipe lines,” said Pareeth.