Resource
and Scarcity have been good friends in our nation. Their contact has been
more intimate in case of our chief resource, water. Without doubt, water
is the prime need for human survival and development. Nature has been
benevolent enough in providing us with adequate water. But the
industrialization of the earth has detonated the valuable water resource
to a large extent.
Tiruppur, a little town in TamilNadu is the centre of India's local cotton
knitwear industry. Tiruppur, situated near Coimbatore which is "The
Manchester of South India", is known by various names such as "Dollar
City", "Knit City", "Cotton City" and mainly "History Centre". There are
about 2000 production units manufacturing variety of goods such as vests,
briefs, panties, tracks, suits, sweat shirts, pullovers, blouses, shirt
blouses, leggings, pajamas, sportswear, beachwear shorts & woven garments
for children, men and women. The finished products have a good market both
in India and overseas. The direct and indirect of Knitwear export fetches
revenue of Rs 30 billion per year which is the reflection of the quality
of goods manufactured. A whole range of industrial units catering to
ancillary functions such as manufacture of cartons, polythene bags, zips,
buttons, tapes and other packing material has also spawned in a big way.
Yet, at first glance, nothing about Tiruppur can make one believe that
this town earns an annual $720 million in foreign exchange. But the tragic
point is that the industrialization that made a town of Tiruppur has also
destroyed the environmental and ecological balance of Tirippur. It is a
fact that the Tiruppur environment is deteriorating because of
industrialization and people from all the groups are accepting the fact
that the ecosystem stability of the town is lost because of
industrialization.
The main impact of this industrialization in Tiruppur is the pollution of
Noyyal River. The Noyyal River has been transformed into an effluent
discharge channel by the industries and its productive use is
unimaginable, even in Utopia. Noyyal is now so terribly polluted that it
easily gets mistaken for a huge multi-colored, half-dry gutter. The water
is highly alkaline, devoid of dissolved oxygen and the TDS (Total
Dissolved Solids) value is very high, in the order of 7000ppm (The maximum
permissible limit is 1500 ppm as per standards). On the other hand, direct
discharge of effluents on the ground too has badly polluted and colored
the ground water table in Tiruppur. It is not uncommon to see long queues
of large plastic buckets and pots at any time of the day, lined in front
of public hand pumps and bore wells, from which tired but persistent women
pump out colored water of varying shades There is no authentic information
about the practical use of Noyyal water for drinking, industry and
irrigation purposes. Tiruppur Town, in sorry state of affairs imports
water from Palladam, Mettupalayam and Coimbatore areas for its various
purposes, in spite of possessing the river Noyyal. This is an evidential
factor of the impact of industrialization of Trippur on the environment
and ecological balance. In today's industrial era, the human race is
suffering from great shortage of water. Therefore slowly the human race
understands the need to revive these neglected water resources. Driven by
environmental concerns and acute shortage of water, the Tiruppur Town is
desperately aiming the revival of Noyyal river, but in vain.
In view of this environmental problem, the Government and the industrial
people have set up effluent treatment plants (ETPs).There are about 300
individual effluent treatment plants (IETPs) ,and 8 common effluent
treatment plants (CETPs) in Tiruppur. But their role has not been
significant enough. Almost all the parameters are near the maximum
permissible concentration or more. This is a curtain raiser that very
little treatment is done in the treatment plants, be it CETPs or IETPs.
Moreover these treatment plants do not even come near, why confirm to the
effluent discharge standards for inland and surface waters as prescribed
by IS:2490-1970. Dissolved Oxygen's absence suggests the prevailing of
anaerobic conditions of the highly alkaline water body devoid of any
acidity. Though there is notable difference in the color and pH level of
the treated water, there is no considerable reduction in TDS, Chlorides
and Sulphates values.
The treatment plants haven't justified their huge investment of Rs.50
crores. Moreover, the enormous quantity of waste water sludge generated by
these CETPs is also an solid waste management problem. In short, the
treatment plants haven't minimized the environmental problems, but have
added to them.
The analysts believe that there are still traces of self purification
capacity of the river, which may be enhanced by thinking upon on cleaner
production and economically viable modern treatment methods. This is
suggestive that action plan in the revival of the river can be done to
enhance the little of the river and the process would not be too late.
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