Our Terms & Conditions | Our Privacy Policy
A river once celebrated in literature, poetry, music, is now sullied by the operation of industries, especially, the tanning industry, the judge observed. File
The Supreme Court on Thursday compared the irreversible damage caused by the discharge of untreated effluents from tanneries in Vellore into the Palar river, a source of water for 30 towns and 50 villages, to an “ecocide”.
A judgment pronounced by Justice JB Pardiwala and R. Mahadevan said the condition of tannery workers in Vellore was no better than that of manual scavengers.
“With the majority of them being women, the situation is even more distressing… This environmental degradation has impoverished local farmers and has caused immense suffering to the local residents and the tannery workers, thereby endangering public health and life,” Justice Mahadevan wrote in the 116-page judgment.
Around 45% of the total tanneries in India were located in Tamil Nadu and 50% of the chemicals used in hide processing at tanneries became wastewater or sludge, Justice Mahadevan noted.
“A river once celebrated in literature, poetry, music, is now sullied by the operation of industries, especially, the tanning industry,” the judge observed.
Tannery wastewater contain pollutants like suspended solids, nitrogen, sulphate, sulphide, chloride, Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), and chromium. The tanning industries have been operating with little or no pollution control for more than a century. It was only after 1980 that the treatment of the tannery wastewater was carried out. A December 2024 report by the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board showed higher concentrations of BOD, COD, total dissolved solids, chloride and sulphide in the river compared to 2015.
The court acknowledged the contribution of the leather market as a key foreign exchange earner. India produces 13% of the world’s leather. The leather market is valued at approximately ₹40,000 crore.
But Justice Mahadevan also highlighted how tannery clusters were usually “located in areas with limited opportunities for livelihood”.
The court refused to be a silent spectator to the environmental consequences and the loss of life and health caused by the waste generated by tanneries. The court held both the State and the polluters responsible. “There is an urgent need to strike a balance between competing interests, evolving and implementing sustainable solutions,” Justice Mahadevan underscored.
In a series of directions ensuring the apex court’s continuing mandamus, the court ordered the State to distribute the compensation fixed by the Union government-appointed Loss of Ecology (Prevention and Payment of Compensation) Authority in 2001 to over 29,000 affected families in Vellore.
The court directed the State to consult the Centre and form an expert committee under the chairmanship of a retired High Court judge in four weeks to conduct an audit to identify, maintain and create a clean and healthy environment in Vellore district.
Published – January 30, 2025 09:29 pm IST
Images are for reference only.Images and contents gathered automatic from google or 3rd party sources.All rights on the images and contents are with their legal original owners.
Aggregated From –
Comments are closed.