At a cost of over Rs 100 crore, the plants will come up at the BMC’s water treatment facilities in Bhandup and Panjrapur.

“We plan to begin with this pilot project before the onset of next monsoon. Chemicals and other pollutants in the filtered water will be treated. We can thus increase the quantity and quality of water available for supply daily. Using these ETPs, we should be able to curb the amount of water loss that occurs when water pumped from lakes is treated,” said Rajendra Borse, chief engineer of the water supply projects department. He added that consultants were appointed in 2008 to assess the feasibility of such a project. “They submitted their report late last year. Such plants have been introduced in Pune and Delhi,” said Borse.

The department aims to treat roughly 160 million litres of polluted water, which is usually drained through the nullahs. Panjrapur and Bhandup facilities treat 2,000 million litres and 1,492 million litres of water respectively. Of this, roughly 160 million litres is drained out as waste.

Tenders for the construction of the ETP at Panjrapur, will soon be invited. Through this plant alone, 60 million litres of waste water will be treated every day.