The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Tanneries plan to reduce production cost

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Friday, Dec 07, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Tanneries plan to reduce production cost

Staff Reporter

IT-enabled services to be tapped to triple production
Secured landfill to be ready at Vaniyambadi in three-four weeks

VANIYAMBADI: Tanneries at Ambur and Vaniyambadi are working on plans to cut production cost to pay for putting in place a sophisticated technology for effluent treatment.

The Ambur Economic Development Organisation Limited has signed a Memorandum of Understanding, under Project Vikas, a Central Government scheme, to make use of the information technology-enabled services to increase production, says its chairman M. Rafeeque Ahmed.

In two years from now, production will go up without cost escalation, and the units at Ambur and Vaniyambadi will be in a position to compete with those in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. Now these units export finished leather worth Rs.3 billion, and they have to triple production to meet the new export target. IT-enabled services will stand them in good stead.

To rise to the standards fixed by the Pollution Control Board, the units at Ambur, Vaniyambadi and Pernambut have agreed to proper treatment of effluents. Now they have to pay four or five times more to the Ambur Economic Development Organisation Limited and the Vaniyambadi Tanners Enviro Control Systems Limited (Vanitec Ltd) for processing the effluents. To offset this cost, the units have to increase production, Mr. Ahmed says.

For more than a century, many residents of these areas have been depending on the tanneries for livelihood. They do not know any other trade. Closure of these units for failure to stick to the Board standards will render thousands of people jobless. The tannery units no more want to pollute the Palar, the main source of water for Vellore, Kancheepuram and Tiruvannamalai districts and parts of South Chennai.

Mr. Ahmed says ten common effluent treatment plants operate all over the State. For setting up these plants, the tanneries have been sanctioned a 75 per cent grant from both the Central and State Governments. The Centre has agreed in principle to increase the grant from 50 per cent to 60 per cent following a request made by Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The proposal, he says, waits for inter-ministerial clearance.

The estimated cost of the three common treatment plants at Ambur and Vaniyambadi has been put at Rs.85 crore. The tanneries all over the State will become non-polluting units in 12-15 months. It involves four components: modification of the existing technology, identification of secured landfill and sludge disposal, road improvement and setting up of common facility centre. Already Ambur has secured landfill and sludge disposal. At Vaniyambadi, it will be ready in three-four weeks.

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