Indian textile industry has expressed its concerns about an Environment Ministry’s step to mandate all textile companies to reduce their effluent discharge to zero. The industry players argue that such specification is far beyond the standards followed by the developed world, and that it would render the Indian companies, even more, uncompetitive at a time when export figures are shrinking.
Moreover, the fact that India has lost its market to Bangladesh and Vietnam in the global market as the favoured supplier for readymade garments makes the situation worrisome.
The environment, forest and climate change ministry had issued a draft notification in late November this year, proposing new pollution control standards for effluents from the textile industry.
The notification said, “Textile units having waste water discharge greater than 25-kilo litres a day shall establish Zero Liquid Discharge — effluent treatment plant’. It has also set a rule, wherein all textile units set up in clusters such as Tirupur in Tamil Nadu should have a common effluent treatment plants, irrespective of their waste water quantity.
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The notification has granted the industry players 30 months to either construct or augment their existing effluent treatment plants, after which no new or existing units will be allowed to operate their factories if they do not comply with the rule.
Industry members have already raised concerns in a missive sent earlier this week to the ministries of textiles as well as environment and forests, questioning the assumption that the textile units discharge effluents without treating them.
A Didar Singh, Secretary General of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), says, “The textile industry has made substantial investments in treating effluents as per the Central Pollution Control Board’s standards… ‘zero discharge’ is not the only solution. The effluent can be treated and reused for various other purposes including discharge in the sea at least in coastal states. Even textile mills in Europe and the US allow discharge of waste water in the sea, river or for irrigation purposes.”
The industry has also requested the ministry to consider the drawbacks of the zero discharge proposal and said that the technologies for such treatment plant are steam and electricity-intensive, leading to higher green house gas emissions.
