Polluting Leather Units In South Face Closure Threat
The leather industry in the south, already reeling under a credit squeeze and the impact of demanding, quality conscious European markets, is facing threat of closure for violating pollution control norms. Tanning of raw hides has been forcibly discontinued in the 14 tanneries in the city leading to losses running to a few crores''.
Two weeks ago, the Karnataka Pollution Control Board (KPCB) issued show cause notices to 14 tanneries in the state for violating the norms laid down by the board for the treatment of pollutants by these industries. The board has also issued prohibitory orders to five industries for serious violations like operating tanneries without consent,'' KPCB chairman A N Bengeri told Business Standard. He claimed the tanneries were shut for the last two weeks and would remain so until their pollution control measures satisfied the board.
For the leather industry, suffering from problems ranging from indifferent quality raw hides and low margins to the rapidly changing and finicky fashion market in Europe, the pollution control board's show cause notices have come as a severe blow. Our company made Rs 20 crore last year, but we are definitely running at a loss this year,'' observed a source from one of the leading manufacturers of leather garments, Cosmas Leathers.
He pointed out that acquisition of non-defective, raw hides posed a huge problem because the entire procedure lay in the hands of the unorganised sector. Ninety per cent of our business relies on the raw material. If the raw material is defective, the entire garment will be rejected by the European buyers,'' he added.
Meanwhile, the city tanneries have not completely shut shop and have just discontinued the tanning of raw hides. The tanneries invited the censure of the state pollution control board because the processing of raw hides leads to the collection of excess effluents at the common effluent treatment plant (CETP).
The smell from these noxious effluents provoked residents in the surrounding area to complain to the board.
The problem arose as the Tamil Nadu tanneries prohibited from operating in their state shifted their production to Bangalore. Sick, closed tanneries here were revived and tanning of raw leather started in earnest. Earlier, the city CETP set up in 1992 by the surrounding tanneries was catering to six industries and bore a load of 10 lakh litres of effluents per day. Today, the same CETP is forced to deal with untreated excess sludge and inferior chemical from wet work i.e. processing of raw hides to wet blue (semi-tanned).
We saw thousands of raw skins being brought here overnight from Erode and Dindigul where tanning had been banned, said a source from leading leather export house, Namaste Exports. Striving to keep up with their monthly production of 10 lakh sq ft of leather, Namaste Exports had to shift their raw skin processing to Ranipet to prevent further losses.
Even as the discontinuation of work on tanning of raw leather has proved to be a setback costing these Bangalore-based tanneries dearly, these companies were hoping to request the state government to shift the tanneries to the city outskirts. We want a separate tannery park far away from the city as planned in Tamil Nadu,'' said the spokesperson for Namaste Exports.