The Hindu Business Line : Call to set up environment mission for leather sector

THE leather industry has called for establishing an environment mission under the Cluster Development Scheme to implement an action plan for pollution prevention and control.

The action plan, submitted to the Centre recently by the Environmental Management Committee of the Council for Leather Exports headed by Mr M.M. Hashim, involves investments of over Rs 400 crore in the major tannery centres such as Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, which account for 90 per cent of the tanning facilities and in tanneries in other States.

These investments will be in addition to those made by the industry in the individual and common effluent treatment plants, which the committee estimates at about Rs 500 crore, to conform to environment standards.

To finance the new infrastructure, the environmental mission may be brought under the Cluster Development Scheme, which provides for measures to enable industry achieve international standards of technology and product parameters.

This could be a standalone scheme eligible for 75 per cent Central assistance and 25 per cent, including institutional funding, from the parties concerned, according to the committee.

The operation and maintenance of the facilities under the scheme would be by the beneficiaries who would create a service company as dictated by the cluster development programme. The implementing agencies could be the Council for Leather Exports, with financial coordination by IL&FS, technical collaboration by Central Leather Research Institute (CLRI).

The action plan envisages launching the mission by June 2005 and completing upgrading the CETPs, setting up new CETPs and zero discharge systems by 2006.

According to the committee's estimate, Punjab units will need about Rs 20 crore investments in environmental facilities, Tamil Nadu Rs 150 crore for water recovery and Rs 50 crore for solid waste management, Uttar Pradesh Rs 80 crore for liquid and solid waste management facilities and West Bengal Rs 60 crore. Units in other States distributed widely will need a total of Rs 40 crore.

The environmental mission is crucial for the tannery sector to meet the technical barriers to trade in the international markets. Also, the Supreme Court has appointed a High Power Monitoring Committee to oversee implementation of hazardous waste management solutions on a national scale covering all industrial sectors including tanneries.

According to the action plan, there are over 2,090 tanneries in India with less than 1,650 working, with 764 units in Tamil Nadu alone. There are 18 Common Effluent Treatment Plants and 178 Effluent Treatment Plants.

These are in tiny, small and medium scale enterprises with the small units producing the wet blue, which is raw or semi-finished leather, from raw skins and hides, and the medium scale units handling further processing of the wet blue.

The overall turnover of the leather trade is about Rs 20,000 crore with the value realisation from the export of finished leather and value added products about Rs 10,000 crore.

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