By Venkatachari Jagannathan

Chennai, April 24 (IANS) With the Madras High Court ordering closure of over 700 dyeing units in Tiruppur a couple of months ago for pollution, the Tamil Nadu government has started cracking down on such factories that have sprouted in neighbouring districts.

The dyeing units in the state are concentrated in districts like Tiruppur, Salem, Erode, Namakkal and Karur, all situated next to one another in western Tamil Nadu, some of which have more than 1,400 such establishments.

The industry is labour-intensive, with each factory employing at least 25 workers.

In Erode, 32 unauthorised dyeing units were shut down Friday and their equipments confiscated.

Erode has over 600 dyeing units, of which around half are illegal. Officials sealed the unauthorised units for not having proper effluent treatment facilities.

"As per Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) figures, there are 311 authorised dyeing units in Erode and 32 unauthorised. We are investigating whether there are more unauthorised units," R. Sukumar, revenue divisional officer at Erode, told IANS over phone.

The high court in January this year ordered the closure of over 700 dyeing units in Tiruppur in a case filed by a farmer's association complaining of pollution in Noyal river water that flows through the district.

The farmers said their farm lands were being affected by the dyeing units in Tiruppur, some 380 km from here.

However, the closure led to job losses for around 70,000 workers.

The authories Saturday began cracking down on units in Namakkal district, located around 300 km from Chennai.

"We are checking whether any dyeing units have started operations during the past two weeks, taking advantage of the district administration's focus on assembly elections. There are complaints of a couple of unauthorised dyeing units near the Cauvery river area," Namakkal District Collector S. Madumathi told IANS.

"We found three units functioning illegally here, and orders have been issued to shut them down from Saturday," she added.

What is shocking is that the dyeing units pollute not only the rivers but also ground water, industry officials told IANS.

"Many dyeing units discharge their effluents directly into the earth by sinking pipes deep down the earth. There are no motor pumps, the pipes are directly sunk into the earth. Such units are present in Salem, Namakkal and even in Perundurai industrial estate. There are dyeing units which let out untreated effluents into huge soak pits," an owner of a dyeing unit in Tiruppur told IANS on condition of anonymity.

Sukumar said he had received complaints of ground water pollution by such units.

"Farmers have told us about that and we are checking the dyeing units for that as well," he said.

An official of a large exporting unit in Tiruppur told IANS: "Such rogue dyers cater to the knitwear manufacturers."

The knitwear factories in Tiruppur alone have a turnover of over Rs.15,000 crore annually.

He said nearly 50 percent of the dyeing units in Tiruppur serve the domestic market.

"The exporters are bound by strict production norms, like the chemicals that can be used," he said.

The manufacturers want the government to take charge of running effluent treatment plants.

"We want the government to run the effluent treatment plants and are willing to pay the necessary charges," R. Annadurai, coordinator of the Tiruppur Industrial Protection Committee (TIPC), told IANS.

He said that even before the high court order, the dyeing industry in Tiruppur had collectively invested around Rs.800 crore on an effluent treatment system that promised zero discharge. However, the technology failed and the entire investment came to naught.

A Tiruppur knitwear exporter told IANS: "Environment protection is the government's responsibility. It can levy environment tax on exporters, which will be passed to the clients. The customs department can deduct the tax from the exporter's drawback scheme. The corpus thus collected could be used for setting up of effluent treatment plants and environmental research."

The tax from the Tiruppur cluster alone would be around Rs.300 crore. The government should also stipulate that such industries should be located in a cluster, he said.

"The western environmentalists classify this sector as dirty industry and transferred this to third world countries on the pretext of getting goods at a competitive price," he said.

Subscribing to the green tax concept, an official of a big export house told IANS: "Two or three percent is not an issue at all, provided there is a solution to the problem."

Meanwhile, Tiruppur exporters are getting their fabric dyed from other states, incurring additional costs.

"Though cost of freight is not an issue, what is eroding our margins is the cost of dyeing, that has doubled now. The industry is now negotiating with the buyers for revised rates," he said.