SC to hear plea on closure of Tirupur dyeing units on Jan 28

New Delhi, Dec 21 (PTI) The Indian Supreme Court will
decide the fate of 900 bleaching and dyeing units in Tirupur
area of India's capital city of Delhi on January 28 as they
have been asked to close down for discharging untreated
effluents into the Noyyal river.

Earlier, the apex court had stayed the Madras High Court
order directing the closure of these units provided they
shelled out Rs 250 million as penalty for pollution.

A bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan has
posted the matter for hearing on January 28 after the counsel
asked for more time to argue the matter.

Senior counsel Rajiv Dhawan, appearing for the farmers,
said the bleaching and dyeing units in and around the textile
town had not fully paid the penalty imposed by the court.

He also said that these polluting units should not be
given permission to continue as they have been polluting the
river indiscriminately.

The petitioners, Tirupur Dyeing Factory Owners
Association and Tirupur Exporters' Association, in their
status reports stated that most of their members had installed
common effluent treatment plants (ETPs).

The associations said 14 out of 18 units had ETPs in
place and were awaiting permission from the court.

The associations had moved the apex court challenging the
Madras High Court order that had virtually directed closure of
more than 900 bleaching and dyeing units, employing around
five lakh workers, for polluting, particularly the ground and
surface water.

The High Court had granted them time till May 11, last
year to install ETPs or close down.

The High Court, hearing a batch of petitions relating to
the discharge of untreated effluents into the Noyyal river,
had also imposed a penalty at the rate of six paise per litre
of untreated effluents allowed to fall into the river for two
months - March and April - if the industry failed to set up
common treatment plant.

Besides, it had asked the units to pay at the rate of
eight paise and 10 paise per litre for May and June, and July
and August.

The court-appointed monitoring committee and the expert
committee had estimated that about 93.4 million litres of such
effluents fell into the river daily.

The associations had argued that the methodology adopted
for calculating penalty was arbitrary and imposed heavy
financial burden on the bleaching and dyeing units which was
over and above the cost of manufacturing.

The high court had worked out a figure without any basis
and most of the units would be closed down which would lead to
loss of Rs 100 billion annual foreign exchange and Rs 70
billion to the domestic market, the petitioners said, adding
every unit had paid Rs 60-70 million fine till now and they
were not able to pay further.

While stating that they need two years to install ETPs as
it cannot be commissioned due to reasons beyond their control,
the petitions contended that around five lakh employees would
be rendered jobless and all the units located at Tirupur area
would migrate to competing countries like China and
Bangladesh.

The state government had announced a scheme at an
estimated cost of Rs 700 crore to take the water through
pipelines to the sea from Tirupur to Bay of Bengal at
Nagapattinam sea shore, the petitioners said, adding the
project would take, at least, two years to complete as the
distance from Tirupur to Nagapattinam sea shore was about 400
kms. PTI