The Centre has notified constitution of a High Level Inter-Ministerial Committee to address problems related to environment and finance, among others, in Tirupur knitwear industry.

The committee is headed by the Union Textiles Secretary. Four more IAS officers, Tirupur Exporters Association president A. Sakthivel and five nominees of TEA and Dyers Association of Tirupur are its members. Joint Secretary (Cotton), Union Textiles Ministry, is the member secretary.

The panel was formed following crisis in the cluster because of the closure of dyeing units by the Madras High Court for causing pollution to River Noyyal despite the earlier court orders asking the units to follow zero liquid discharge (ZLD) norms strictly.

Farmers unhappy

Already, the announcement of the committee with six members from the textile industry, including the DAT representatives and more importantly, without any representation from farmers who had to bear the brunt of indiscriminate effluent discharge into water bodies, had incurred the wrath of environment activists and the farmers who termed the panel a “gimmick”.

Objectives

The tasks assigned to the committee too had come under severe criticism.

Some of the jobs include ascertaining the total dissolved solids (TDS) level in River Noyyal, study of the technical reports available on damage caused to ecology and analysing the effluent treatment execution by dyeing units.

Laughable

“This is a laughable situation that the same bureaucracy, which did not initiate stern action on the polluting dyeing units in the past, and the dyeing unit owners who polluted River Noyyal have been jointly entrusted with the job of studying TDS levels and effluent treatment measures in the dyeing units,” Vanchipalayam K. Durai, president of Tirupur Groundwater Protection Committee, said.