BMC scraps desalination project tender

04 Sep 2024 CW Team

BMC had scrapped the tendering process for the much-anticipated desalination project, which aimed to increase the city's water supply by 200 million liters per day (MLD), due to a lack of suitable bidders. Despite multiple deadline extensions since December 2023, the project failed to attract participants, leading civic authorities to investigate the reasons for the lack of interest.

The most recent bid extension ended on August 29. A senior civic official explained that, despite extending the deadline several times, they either received one bid or none at all. Therefore, it was decided to cancel the tendering process, as further extensions no longer seemed viable. However, the official assured that the project remained a priority and would not be rushed, adding that experts would be consulted to determine the reasons for the limited interest.

In February 2021, the BMC had appointed an Israeli company to draft a detailed proposal for the project. SMEC India was later hired in January 2022 to review the study and designs prepared by the Israeli firm. A tender notice was issued on December 4, 2023, for the construction of a plant to convert saline water into potable water.

Previously, Congress had raised allegations of cartelisation in the tender process, accusing the conditions of being manipulated to favour a specific bidder. They had called on the BMC to provide an explanation and urged the cancellation of the entire tender process if the allegations were proven true.

Real Estate

05 Dec 2025

RBI Rate Cut Boosts Confidence Across Housing Market

Industry Context and Market DynamicsThe real estate industry has welcomed the RBI’s rate cut as a timely boost to affordability and demand. With home prices having risen steadily across major markets, even a marginal reduction in interest rates meaningfully strengthens purchasing power, especially for first-time and mid-income buyers.Ashish Jerath, President – Sales & Marketing, Smartworld Developers, observes:“The RBI’s 25-basis-point cut, bringing the repo rate down to 5.25%, is a timely boost for the real estate sector. Lower interest rates reduce borrowing costs, enabling homeb..

BMC Resumes Rs 170 Billion Road Works, Targets 80 per cent By Jan 2026

Following the withdrawal of the southwest monsoon in October, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has restarted work on 645 roads—covering 297.49 kilometres—under its large-scale concretisation programme. Data shows that more than 60 per cent of the resumed works are located in the western suburbs. Officials said the civic body aims to complete concretisation on 80 per cent of the roads where fresh work has begun by January 2026. Launched in 2022, the Rs 170 billion project seeks to concretise 700 kilometres of roads across Mumbai. All civil works were halted during the monsoon ..

India Pushes Digital Shift In Urban Land Mapping

The Department of Land Resources (DoLR) under the Ministry of Rural Development has convened a National Symposium on NAKSHA – the National Geospatial Knowledge-based Land Survey of Urban Habitations – to advance India’s transition to modern, technology-driven land mapping. Speaking at the inaugural session, Secretary Manoj Joshi underscored the urgent need to move revenue departments away from outdated, tape-based methods and rough hand-drawn sketches. He stressed that adopting latitude–longitude-based digital mapping and GIS-linked registration systems is essential for economic stabi..