The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Opposition mounting against dyers' new plans

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Monday, Jun 27, 2011
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Tamil Nadu

Opposition mounting against dyers' new plans

R Vimal Kumar

Tirupur: Opposition is mounting against the fresh set of pleas aired by dyeing unit owners in Tirupur cluster seeking financial assistance from State Government to implement new effluent treatment technologies for ensuring zero liquid discharge (ZLD).

“If the government extends any financial assistance for the projects, including for the new one announced by the president of Dyers Association of Tirupur (DAT) using a technology developed by a Pune-based company, to achieve ZLD, it will tantamount to violation of the Supreme Court verdict of ‘polluters pay' pronounced in many pollution-related cases including one on the petition against the Tirupur dyers,” P. Sankaranarayan, an environmental activist, told The Hindu. Mr. Sankaranarayan had now written a detailed letter to the State Industries Secretary why the fresh appeal of the DAT made a few days ago that Government should bear 75 per cent of the Rs. 350-crore project for ensuring ZLD using the new technology should be rejected by the government at the first instance itself.

“Even the allocation of Rs. 320 crore subsidy by the central and state governments last year to offset the cost incurred for setting up the Common Effluent Treatment Plants (CETP) was a violation of the Supreme Court verdict,” he pointed out.

The Supreme Court bench comprising the then Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan and Justice B. S. Chauhan, while pronouncing the verdict on the Special Leave Petition filed by the Noyyal River Ayacutdars Protection Association against the dyers, clearly mentioned the term “polluters pay”.

Mr. Sankarnarayan, in his letter to the Industries Secretary, had cited few more verdicts made by Supreme Court judges Justice Kuldip Singh and Justice Jeevan Reddy in similar cases, to reiterate the phrase ‘polluters pay'.

K. Vanchipalayam Durai, president of Tirupur Groundwater Protection Committee and a progressive farmer, is of the opinion that the fund of Rs. 320 crore allocated for the CETPs should be instead given as relief for the farmers who were affected by the indiscriminate effluent discharge. He also accused that certain owners of big scale dyeing units were just interested in opening their individual effluent treatment plants (IETPs) instead of fighting for the CETPs.

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