The Ministry of Textiles (MoT), Government of India, has urged the Environment & Forests (MoEF) to review the proposed standards that seek implementation of Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD) for Textile Processing units, in which the waste water discharge is greater than 25 KLD.
In the letter to the MoEF, which Apparel Resources had access to, the MoT said, “As the domestic textile processing industry is largely unorganized and comprises small and medium enterprises or job work units, the proposed standards appear to be too stringent not only in terms of initial capital investment but also due to the high recurring expenditure, which will make the ZLD commercially non-viable. As a result, insisting on such ZLD standards will lead to closure of the industry, which in turn would lead to unemployment of workers currently working in such units.”
However, MoEF officials are of the opinion that it may not be possible to provide any more time to the textile industry as the environment concern is now a top priority and that reasonable time has already been given to the industry. An investment of at least Rs 4 crore is required for a reasonable ZLD setup.
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MoT has received a large number of representations from the textile industry, expressing this concern, along with the request to review the proposed environment standards. MoT has formed a committee for studying the existing technologies of effluent treatment and recommending the Best Available Technology (BAT), keeping in view financial and other related factors. MoT held a series of discussions with the representatives of industry, Textile Research Associations (TRAs) and Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) on this issue.
Experts feel that despite having a huge cost, ZLD must be implemented as soon as possible because the textile industry will not take the initiative until and unless MoEF or State Pollution departments does not put pressure and set deadlines to it.
“In case ZLD implementation in the textile industry is inevitable, technically 30-month time period would be sufficient for its implementation. The government can also do it in a phased manner, starting with big units or selected states,” said Anshul Chawla, Senior Associate, cKinetics, Delhi that is working closely in this regard.
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