At a press conference organised today by Federation of Dyeing Factories, Ludhiana, the members said that all the textile dyeing units in the city had installed effluent treatment plants and had been given nod by the Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) to operate these plants.

The textile dyeing units operate their plants and are monitored by PPCB on regular basis. At times there may be certain minor inadequacies or malfunctioning of some of the ETPs but that does not mean that the units are not meeting majority of the norms fixed by PPCB, said the members. It is also important to note that as of now none of the textile dyeing units is discharging its treated effluent directly into Budha Nallah.

This fact can be independently verified by anyone, claimed more than 200 members of this federation. T.R Mishra, chairman of this federation, said that PPCB about six months ago had engaged National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), Nagpur, with the approval of the Punjab and Haryana High Court to study the problem in detail and give alternative solutions for improving the situation. The federation has been working very closely with the Punjab government and PPCB to upgrade the deficient ETPs to achieve the standards prescribed by PPCB and recommendations made by NEERI.

The members claimed that the names of chemicals and metals like, calcium, magnesium, fluoride, mercury, chromium, arsenic, chlorpyriphos, heptachlor, B-endosulphan, lead, copper and cadmium etc, either do not exist at all or are below the detectable limits or way below the norms fixed by both PPCB and CPCB for discharge into Inland Surface Water. These facts are abundantly clear from the tests carried out by NEERI and reported in their interim report, which has already been submitted to the Punjab and Haryana High Court, Punjab government and PPCB, said VK Goyal, another member of the federation.

The members said that the textile industry accounted for only 10% of the liquid discharge of Ludhiana, which was put into the municipal sewers after treatment as per the norms fixed by PPCB. The rest 85% to 90% liquid discharge was basically domestic sewage which infact had high BOD (about 350 against industry’s 30) level and zero fish survival.