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S. Gopikrishna Warrier

Despite connecting their facilities to individual or common effluent treatment plants, the tanners of Vellore were unable to meet the TDS of 2,100 parts per million prescribed by the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board.

CHENNAI, April 5

THE leather units located on the Palar River basin in Vellore district are awaiting the implementation of pilot projects on using reverse osmosis (RO) for dealing with the problem of total dissolved solids (TDS) in treated tannery effluents.

According to Mr M.M. Hashim, Chairman of the Environment Cell of the All India Skin & Hide Tanners & Merchants' Association (AISHTMA), the focus of the efforts to get rid of the TDS problem has now shifted to RO technology.

It was decided at a meeting between the Government and the leather industry, chaired by the Chief Secretary, that this technology would be tested in two pilot projects funded by the Government and the industry, he said.

With this, the focus has shifted from the two technology alternatives considered earlier for dealing with the TDS problem to the RO option, according to Mr Hashim. The first option being discussed was for a pipeline along the Palar River bed to direct the treated effluents for discharge into the sea.

The second option was for the tannery clusters around Ambur town. This project, which has been sanctioned funding from the National River Conservation Programme of the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), involves laying sewerage lines in the town so that the treated tannery effluents can be mixed with treated sewage.

Despite connecting their facilities to individual or common effluent treatment plants, the tanners in Vellore district were not able to meet the TDS of 2,100 parts per million, as prescribed by the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board. Currently, the TDS values they achieve post-treatment are at least three to four times the prescribed limit.

Mr Hashim said the tanneries would soon start paying the compensation as laid out under the Award of the Loss of Ecology Authority. The tanneries of Vellore district were asked to pay Rs 26.82 crore as compensation.

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