Around 2,000 members of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) observed fast in front of the railway station here on Friday demanding a permanent solution for the effluent discharge in Tirupur knitwear cluster.
Speaking on the occasion, former Minister C. Ponnaiyan, criticised the Central and State Governments for not coming out with creative schemes to help the textile entrepreneurs in Tirupur to tide over the crisis despite the situation got worse.
“The central and state governments could have easily allocated the Rs 1,000 crore, estimated to implement the marine discharge project to take away the treated effluents, if they had the concern for the industry and for the lakhs of workers dependent on it,” he said.
He pointed out that the amount for setting up marine discharge project should have been taken from the corporate and income taxes realised to the tune of Rs 10,000 crore from Tirupur and its hinterland.
According to him, the biggest hurdle in the effluent treatment process is the difficulty to evaporate the 10 per cent residue coming out after the biological and reverse osmosis procedures being adopted to purify the effluent water generated in the dyeing units.
“Since the volume of residue generated is huge and it contains high level of salt contents, the only solution to dispose it safely is to take to the sea,” he said.
C. Sivasami, MP, and various MLAs took part in the fast.
