Soon,Shimla plans to generate power from treated effluent

The plants,to be named integrated sewerage treatment project,will be taken up under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission. “We have already invited expression of interests (EoIs) from private investors,both for refurbishment and rehabilitation of the town’s water supply supply and also the sewerage system of Shimla City for the next 20 years,” said Commissioner A N Sharma.

Under the project,besides targetting 24-hour water supply in town,the MC will also entrust the job of revenue collections to private promoters. The sewerage system in the town has was created decades ago and that too for a limited population during the British rule. Shimla’s population has grown immensely during last 60 years. Arrival of tourists and the movement of rural population to Shimla has posed a bigger challenge to the civic infrastructure.

According to Sharma,his prime job is to create and strengthen civic infrastructure. “If the integrated project on exploring possibilities of power generation works out,the Corporation will get an additional revenue resource. Exact estimates of the power capacity is being worked out. It could be one MW or more,” he added.

Under the drinking water supply scheme,promoters have been asked to assess the installed capacity utilisation of the existing water supply system and then take up works like refurbishment,rehabilitation and expansion of transmission and distribution network.

Reduction of non-revenue water by reducing physical losses through leakage management and reduction of commercial losses in the water supply system — through identification and regularisation of unauthorised connections — metering and improvement in billing and collection systems are other proposed works to be taken up under the project.