296 Knp tanneries ‘temporarily’ shut down

:KANPUR: The Uttar Pradesh government has ordered temporary closure of 296 leather tanneries in Kanpur following a report of the National Green Tribunal, an official said.

“The tanneries were asked to shut down as the common effluent treatment plant was not working and tannery waste was flowing untreated into the river,” said regional officer, UP Pollution Control Board, Kuldeep Mishra.

He said the UPPCB had served the closure order, issued on November 18, to all the tanneries on Tuesday.

He said “The tanneries will be allowed to resume day-to-day operations once the treatment plant is repaired,” he said.

On its part, the Jal Nigam, that handles the operations of treatment plants, said it would be able to complete the repair work within seven to 10 days.

The decision was taken by an NGT team headed by retired judge AK Tandon that had inspected the tanneries on October 26 and had found that the CETP had some defects.

As a result about 1.5 crore litre of untreated tannery water containing chromium was pumped into Ganga daily.

The team then asked the state government to close the tanneries till CETP was made operative to run to its full capacity.

Though the Jal Nigam says it would be able to fix the problem in 10 days but the leather industrialists fear that they might have to shut down for three months starting December 15 as the state government had earlier indicated it would shut down tanneries to ensure free and unpolluted flow of Ganga during the Kumbh in Prayagraj.

The tannery owners said the closure would cause a production loss of over ₹233 crore per day and render over two lakh people jobless.