PAEW to invest RO700mn on various water projects

By V L Srinivasan

Muscat, Jan 19: Anticipating a steep increase in the demand for water, the Public Authority for Electricity and Water (PAEW) has drawn up plans to execute new projects and expand some of the existing ones at a cost of RO700mn during the Eighth Five Year Plan, from 2011-16.

Projects will include construction of reservoirs besides laying and strengthening the existing distribution network, pumping stations, water supply systems to upcoming new airports across the country. They will be funded entirely by the government and are scheduled for completion by 2016.

“Among them is a project for the construction of over ten emergency reservoirs in and around Muscat city for storage of water at a cost of about RO100mn,” PAEW director general (projects) Zahir Khalid Suleiman al Suleimani told Muscat Daily.

Extension of water supply networks and construction of elevated tanks would be taken up in four of the eight wilayats of Muscat - Seeb, Bausher, Muscat and al Amerat - as a number of newly developed layouts have come up in these places for which water supply networks are to be extended from the adjoining areas.

Paper work on the construction of emergency reservoirs is progressing briskly with officials preparing detailed designs while the process of tendering would begin soon, he said.

According to the 2003 census, the population of Muscat city is 631,000 and it is expected to cross 1mn by 2025. At present, the city is being supplied water through its three desalination plants - one at Al Ghubra and the other two at Barka.

While the desalination plant at Ghubra is producing 182,000 cu m (40 million imperial gallons per day) water every day,the combined capacity of the two desalination water plants at Barka is 211,000 cu m (66.4 MIGD).

Besides these projects in the Muscat governorate, the PAEW is also constructing a desalination plant at Salalah for which the department is in the process of awarding the contract.

This will be the first such project coming up in Salalah region and the present demand of 70,000 cu m per day is met by tapping the ground water resources. However, the demand is likely to shoot up to 93,000 cu m per day by 2015.