The Hindu Business Line : PCB crackdown on 2 Tirupur dyeing units

THE Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (PCB) has cracked the whip against dyeing units in Tirupur for not complying with the Board's directive on effluent treatment. The Board has ordered disconnection of electricity supply to two major dyeing units for failing to comply with its directive.

The electricity board had disconnected power supply to the two units since Thursday, PCB sources said.

The two dyeing units, with five tonnes and four tonnes per-day processing capacity respectively, are among the ten major dyeing units which were served with show-cause notices earlier by the PCB for not implementing the Board's directive of reducing effluent load, despite availing themselves of time to do so.

The two units that suffered power disconnection are members of two different common effluent treatment plants (CETPs) in operation in Tirupur.

The sources said the action against the two dyeing units was taken under Section 33(a) of Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act 1975 as amended in1988.

The State pollution control board has for quite some time been urging the Tirupur dyeing units to go for mechanical segregation of the dye-bath and dye-salt, especially by the major dyeing units so as to bring down the effluent load in the water discharged by them.

The Board had in fact wanted these dye-houses to take as a model a private dyeing unit, Chemtech Processors which is the first dyeing unit in the Tirupur area to go for `zero' discharging through multiple-evaporaion and reverse osmosis technique to treat the effluents discharged from its 5-tonne capacity processing unit.

The State PCB took a tough posture against the polluting industry ever since the widespread public protest against the dyeing houses in another textile cluster in Karur.

The PCB had only recently ordered disconnection of power supply to about 100 dyeing units coming under two CETPs in Karur. Only last month the members of the Loss of Ecology Authority appointed by the Madras High Court visited Tirupur to personally assess the impact of the environmental damages caused by the pollution in the Noyyal river system.

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