To meet demand, Govt to raise production of Amma water bottles to 2L per day

The sale of low-cost bottled mineral water was launched in 2013 to provide hygienic and sterile drinking water to the poor and working-class people at an affordable price of Rs 10 at government bus stops and other public places.

Amma Drinking Water Plant has been established by the State Express Transport Corporation (SETC) at the Institute of Road Transport (IRT), Heavy Vehicle Driver Training Wing campus, Gummudipoondi, Thiruvallur District in an extent of 2.47 acres. The existing plant has a capacity to produce 1.5 lakh bottles per day.

The IRT has invited bids to install machinery to manufacture and supply of purified packaged drinking water bottle in plastic PET bottles of 1000 ml and glass PET bottle of 750 ml at Gummudipoondi for a contract period of five years.

“The plant should produce at least two lakh bottles per day and maximum according to the demand fixed by the SETC,” an official of the transport department said, adding that the plant would treat borewell water to produce purified drinking water which would be filled in the bottles and transported through the transport corporation buses to the point of sale.

The water bottles were being sold through 310 selling points across the state at a cost of Rs 10 as against Rs 15 charged by the Railways and Rs 20 charged by the private companies.

The decision to increase the production was taken amid the complaints of the commuters on the unavailability of the low-cost water bottles at many places. Transport Minister MR Vijayabhaskar had recently attributed the shortage of the Amma Water bottles to the machinery at the Gummidipoondi plant completing its lifetime. “We will soon install the machinery to step up production at the plant,” he told reporters recently to a query on the short supply of the Amma Water bottles.