Russia signs MoU to help state clean up Mithi

Intending to clean rivers in the state, especially, Mithi river, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Thursday, signed an MoU with the governor of Russia’s St. Petersburg Georgy Poltavchenko. The MoU is expected to see mutual cooperation and technological support in treatment of waste water and water supply.

“The MoU will facilitate setting up of a working group from both the states to design a roadmap of cooperation and the timeline to implement it,” an official from the CMO said. He then added, “Vodokanal, an organisation that is instrumental in sewage water treatment in Russia, is going to help the state government with technological solutions in water supply and water disposal technologies for Mithi and other rivers.” Mumbai and St. Petersburg have a sister-city relation and would be completing 50 years of this relationship in 2017.

St. Petersburg’s Vodokanal looks after water networks worth 7,100km and nine water treatment plants. It also supplies 1.6million of potable water daily. Thanking the governor for its assistance, Mr Fadnavis also acknowledged Russia’s help for several collaborations in the field of education, tourism, shipbuilding, IT and even yoga and other areas of development of smart cities as was discussed along the sidelines of BRICS conclave.

The state government has been struggling to clean Mithi river as untreated water from many industries get released into it. Even though the state had spent a huge amount of money on the river, it has failed to clean it. The matter of cleaning Mithi came forth after it overflowed on June 26, 2008 flooding the entire city for two days.