Greening of Leather Industry in India pushed by Government with $42 million grant

India’s Leather Industry worth more than $7 billion annually is heavily fragmented with small scale units accounting for almost 80% of the industry’s revenues.The lack of scale has led to the leather industry not using the best technology and practises as a result it has been heavily polluting the surrounding water and air.The leather industry is present in clusters in many parts of the country like Kolkata,Kanpur,Punjab and other other places.The common theme running across these  clusters is their uniforming polluting ways.Leather industry is a a typically developing country activity as the labor and low value add involved has made developed countries mostly outsource production to least developing countries where regulations are lax.However the environment unfriendly activities have become untenable with the major export markets imposing strict ecological regulations about production and sale.This has made it difficult for the industry to cope up as they lack the capital and technology to put in pollution control equipment.

The government of India has granted  around $42 million to promote the usage of pollution control equipment in the industry where water borne pollution is a major issue.The use of reverse osmosis technology is said to have a positive effect on reducing pollution.Note the leather industry too recognizes the need for reducing pollution if not for noble purposes like greening the earth but for its future sales and profits.

Consultant to monitor Rs 200cr green projects in leather units

Leather sector is one of the fastest growing industries in the country, but tanning is considered highly polluting.As 80 per cent of the tanning units are small-scale, they cannot afford to spend on pollution control equipment such as effluent treatment plants.In order to provide assistance to the tanning and leather goods industry to improve their environmental performance, the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) has set aside a fund of Rs 200 crore in the 11th Plan.As the scheme gets implemented, the DIPP wants to monitor the projects with the help of a consultant for which proposals have been invited.