A new plant is treating fresh water in Dairut, in the governorate of Asyut in Egypt. The facility, inaugurated by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, provides drinking water to 460,000 people.
Water supply is one of the Egyptian government’s major projects. President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi inaugurated a new plant in Dairut, a town on the west bank of the Nile in the governorate of Asyut. The plant treats fresh water before distribution.
The Dairut drinking water plant has a capacity of 86,000 m3 per day, making it one of the largest facilities of its kind in the North African country.
25.4 million investment
The objective of the Egyptian government is to allow the populations of Dairut, still not connected to the national network, to have access to drinking water. In all, 460,000 people in this city will benefit from a continuous supply of water. The implementation of this project required an investment of 400 million Egyptian pounds, more than 25.4 million dollars.
The works in Asyut governorate are part of the National Water Plan 2017-2037, one of the Egyptian state’s strategic plans for water supply in Upper Egypt, valued at $50 billion. As part of this strategy, the Egyptian government also calls for desalination for drinking water, as well as freshwater resource rationalization in the agriculture sector. With the drought, fresh water is becoming scarce in Egypt. The situation is expected to worsen with the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which will reduce the flow of the Nile. The North African country is more than 90 per cent dependent on water from the Nile.
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Another plan to improve Egypt’s water supply calls for 67 seawater desalination plants in the governorates of Matrouh, Red Sea, North and South Sinai, Ismailiyah and Suez by 2050. To increase investment in desalination tenfold, Egypt is relying on public-private partnerships (PPPs) which have already enabled several companies to obtain concessions. This is the case of Metito, an Emirati company, which has joined forces with the Egyptian company Orascom Construction to launch the construction of a seawater desalination plant in El-Arich, in the North Sinai governorate. The first phase of the project will provide a capacity of 100,000 m3 per day. The capacity of the facility will then be increased to 200,000 m3 per day in the second phase.
Inès Magoum
