Common effluent treatment plants (CETPs) would be established in 10 locations in Erode and Namakkal
districts to prevent discharge of effluents from industries into water bodies, minister for environment and climate change Siva V Meyyanathan informed the state assembly on Friday. The CETPs would be established with state and Central funding, Meyyanathan said in reply to the debate on demands for grants for various departments.
The move is expected to prevent pollution of Cauvery in Erode and Namakkal districts. Scores of dyeing units are functioning along the banks of the river at Komarapalayam, Pallipalayam, and Kokkarayanpettai in Erode and Namakkal districts. Several of these units do not have effluent treatment facilities and illegally discharge chemical waste into the river during night hours.
At present, there are 37 CETPs in the state of which 13 are in the tannery sector while19 have been installed for textile bleaching and dyeing units. Emphasizing the importance of CETP, the minister asked the industries to install CETPs to safeguard the environment.
The minister said the TNPCB has also taken measures to check the water quality in the water bodies in textile industrial belts of the Tirupur, Erode, and Namakkal districts. It installed three online continuous water quality monitors in river Cauvery, Noyyal, Bhavani, and Kalingarayan canal in the region to monitor the water quality on a real-time basis. The facility also covers Thamirabarani in the Tirunelveli district.
Apart from this, the department had installed 34 continuous ambient air quality (AAQ) monitoring stations to check the air quality in industrial areas and cities, the minister said and noted that the system would alert whenever the AAQ pollution level goes beyond the permissible level. The officials would act immediately and take appropriate action. Now, the government has decided to install AAQ monitoring stations in all district headquarters and in towns that have more than 1 lakh population, he added.
There were 50,650 industries in the state. The Central Pollution Control Board has categorized the highly polluting industries as Red (12,722 industries), medium polluting industries as Orange (26,739), and less polluting industries as Green (11,169) based on the pollution index score. The department has brought 177 highly polluting industries in the state under intensive monitoring, he noted.
Tamil Nadu to add 10 effluent treatment plants
