Affected by water shortage during the summer months impacting capacity utilization, Indian steelmaker Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL) will invest $44 million to augment water storage infrastructure, a company official said on Monday, June 6.
The official said that the investment will be to build a second reservoir to avoid the acute water shortage likely to be faced by its plant located in the southern port town of Vishakhapatnam during the summer period.
According to the official, although the Vishakhapatnam region has received some amount of pre-monsoon rains during the past week, the precipitation was not sufficient to recharge the entire catchment area of river basins that provide water supply to the steel plant.
The RINL plant is currently receiving about 32 million gallons per day of water against a standard safety requirement of 37 million gallons per day with a storage capacity of at least 18 days requirement of water on any day, the official added.