Others too have brain that they are converting saline water and delaying river projects. Using costly water is better than dying in floods.
Let me put my arguments it in a point wise fashion;
1. Desalination is an energy intensive therefore a cost intensive process, as you have agreed. There are two major type of Desalination process viz. (a) Thermal Desalination, and (b) Membrane based Reverse Osmosis.
Option (a) is more energy intensive than Option (b) due to higher requirement of energy. On the other hand, Option (b) has issues with membrane separation efficiency, i.e. a significant part of input water gets rejected in the process. Moreover, saline rich effluent disposal is an another issue which adds up to the cost of Desalination.
2. Having said that, in Indian context, we are quite blessed with availability of fresh water if you consider so many perennial rivers flowing through northern and peninsular region (Even though per capita fresh water availability is low) . Adding to that, 3 months of south west monsoon during which our coastal western ghats get more than adequate rains that make these region water excess; at least we don't need to worry about their water requirements. For the parched regions like, Marathwada and Vidarbha, their problem could not be attributed to water scarcity or failure of monsoon alone. Unbridled or excessive usage of ground water for irrigation of sugar cane has imposed a huge strain on fresh water availability. In this case, setting up Desalination process in these regions is useless because there is no water source available to process at all ! Setting up dedicated Desalination plant for these regions in the coastal areas will impose transportation cost which will negate the feasibility of the project.
3. Rajasthan which receives lowest rain throughout the year and cursed with no perennial river (except for Chambal) doesn't make any news for water crisis. The only reason why they don't face this issue is the efficient water management. Indeed, the report tells that there are many places in the Rajasthan where desalination technique is used. But that process (which is membrane based RO process) is applied only to those areas where the ground water is contaminated harmful elements like Arsenic, Mercury etc. We can learn many things from the micro-management of water employed (Like Drip irrigation, Sprinkler technique etc.) in Rajasthan.
4. Chennai is one the examples which people use to tell in support of Desalination. Indeed, Chennai uses Desalination water at larger scale but here the hidden fact is that most of the desalinated water is supplied to the industries. The industries has to pay for extra cost incurred due to desalination of sea water which in turn free-up the fresh water being used by them earlier for the Public usage !
Together with proper planning and effective rain water harvesting, which probably contribute more than Desalination has resolved much of the water woes in Chennai.
5. As I demonstrated with my arguments ( I will post some sources/links regarding that later), There are many other options or rather low hanging fruits available like Rain water harvesting, River linkage at regional level, etc. that can help us to resolve water crisis before going towards Desalination as an option.
NDTV is at fault by publishing such a shallow story without digging deeper into the problem!
Water cannot be destroyed.
Rich UAE less than million population with a long sea coast,guess what they are planing for future water needs instead desalination plants, want to build a $230 Bn FAKE MOUNTAIN!!
