Gujarat government has decided to invite a national open bidding to award the contract of preparing feasibility report of its ambitious Kalpsar project which will be implemented at an estimated cost of Rs 54,000 crore.
The feasibility report, on which the state government has decided to spend about Rs 150 crore, will be prepared as the pre-feasibility report has been found to be encouraging. The government will be setting up a core committee to look after the entire project and a cabinet decision was taken in this regard on last Thursday.
The proposed project would be situated near the Gulf of Cambay between Dahej and Ghogha. Kalpsar project, a dream-child of former chief minister Keshubhai Patel and Anil Kane, vice-chancellor of M S University in Vadodara, was created seven years back, in 1995.
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But delays in preparing pre-feasibility report, doubts over implementation delayed the project till it was formally accepted on last Thursday by caretaker chief minister Narendra Modi.
"It has been now decided to empower the chief minister to activate an expert core committee to prepare a feasibility report for the planning of the huge project. The chief minister will decide about the members of this committee which will directly report to his office," said minister for agriculture Purshottam Rupala.
Kalpsar project, a multi-purpose project, is expected to bring a permanent solution to the drinking water crisis of the state. The project will also include power generation project, provide irrigation help to farmers besides providing navigation facilities.
"As we have understood that this project can take off after the pre-feasibility study report was scrutinised by the experts of the state government, now we are on the process of inviting a national open bidding to conduct the feasibility study for which we have allocated Rs 125-150 crore. Once this is over, we will go for international open bidding for implementation of the main project and the government has decided to prefer experienced private parties to join in the project construction," I K Jadeja, minister for urban development, said.
"It has aimed at conservation of 12,250 million cubic metre sweet water by constructing a big reservoir off the Gulf of Cambay and it will not only help solving the drinking water problem, but also generate 5,880 MW of electricity. Once ready, Kalpsar project will provide irrigation facility to about 10 lakh hectare of agricultural land, now covered under the command area of Narmada project in Saurashtra," said Jadeja.
The project, strategically located, has also an advantage of variants of tides. "The difference between high and low tides in this Gulf is one of the highest in the world and thousands of millions of litres of sea water rushes in and out of the Gulf of Cambay everyday. This in itself is a source of tremendous amount of energy which the project expects to take advantage of," said Jadeja.
The project is also expected to boost industrial activity when water and power becomes available and another benefit is that saline water ingress will be reduced. "The water table in various parts of the state has gone down considerably due to overuse and water is also getting saline. Kalpsar will stop this trend as well as desertification," added Jadeja.