Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Monday, Jul 26, 2004
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Monday, Jul 26, 2004 |
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Industry & Economy
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Environment Madras HC order puts Tirupur dyers in a bind G. Gurumurthy
Coimbatore , July 25 STUNG by the last week's interim ruling from the Madras High Court relating to the effluent discharge into the Noyyal river system, the members of the Tirupur hosiery dyeing and bleaching industries have sought the intervention of the Tamil Nadu Government. The issue is one of saving the dyeing and bleaching industry of Tirupur which is vital to the Rs 7,000 crore earnings of knitwear in export and domestic market business, to the livelihood of 50 lakh people in and around Tirupur and to the employment of another 10 lakh workers most of whom have migrated from other parts of the State, said the Tirupur-based Dyers Association of Tirupur (DAT). "Since the dyed cloth forms the basis of all activities of the hosiery industry in Tirupur, any meddling of the smooth running of the dyeing and bleaching units will spell disaster for the entire hosiery industry and trade in which besides the local entrepreneurs thousands of hosiery industrialists and trade from outside Tamil Nadu and upcountry centres have invested," said Mr N. Kandasamy, President of DAT. In his appeal to the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Ms J. Jayalalithaa, he had pointed out that the treatment of the hosiery trade effluents adopted by the Tirupur dying industry had undergone improvement between now and 1998 to which date the High Court ruling is related. Since 1998, Tirupur dyeing bleaching industries had established eight common effluent treatment plants at Rs 74 crore and another 420 individual effluent treatment plants to tackle discharge into the Noyyal river. Tirupur dyeing units spend Rs 2.5 crore every month for effluent treatment operations. This helped them address effluent parameters such as colour, odour and biological oxygen demand and chemical oxygen demand The only issue which remains unresolved is the total dissolved solids (TDS) levels in the effluents discharged. All these indicated that Tirupur dyers were committed to finding a solution to the pollution issue. The present problem relating to the silt deposits in the Orathupalayam dam, which led to the current court ruling, has been in respect of the silt/sludge deposits that occurred prior to 1998. He said that the composition of ground water found in and around Tirupur carried high levels of TDS which remained well above 5000 parts per million (ppm). Mr Kandasamy expressed hope that with the third water scheme for Tirupur expected to be through in a few months time the issue of tackling the TDS would prove a reality as this water with its TDS levels at 100 ppm would relieve the effluent problem for the people of Tirupur as well as the farmers of the Orathupalayam dam area. The DAT president in his appeal to the Chief Minister wanted the State Government to undertake the job of desiting and cleaning the Orathupalayam dam as urged by the High Court at its cost as a matter of `social obligation' and such a course is `possible under the statute'. The DAT's appeal to the Tamil Nadu Government comes in the wake of the ruling from the Madras High Court bench issued on July 14, 2004 which asked the State Government to clean up the Orathupalayam check dam within two weeks to remediate the effluents discharged into the dam. The court also asked the Coimbatore district collector to verify and list out the dyeing and bleaching units which still continued to discharge effluents into the Noyyal river in violation of the earlier injunction issued by the court in March this year. The court ruling is based on a writ petition from the Noyyal Ayacutdars Protection Association, Kodumudi. The Coimbatore collector has been asked to report to the Court on the status of his inspection of Tirupur dying units by July 27 when it is expected to hear the case.
More Stories on : Environment | Knitwear & Hosiery | Tamil Nadu
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