Even as the dyeing units are being set up in Terakanambi, Dollipura and Lokkanahalli of the district, the district administration and the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) are looking the other way.
This despite the fact that the dyeing units have not taken permission from the district administration and KSPCB. They have also not bothered to get the no objection certificate from the Gram Panchayat.
The effluents from the dyeing units are polluting the tanks in the rural areas, posing a danger to the health of the people and cattle. Moreover, the illegal units are being run with farmers providing their lands on contract basis for setting up the units, as partners. The industrialists are spending Rs 10 lakh to Rs 25 lakh per unit.
Readymade garments from Tirupur are exported in large quantities. There are more than 5,000 readymade garment units in Tirupur providing employment to four lakh people with an annual turnover exceeding 10,000 crore.
Poisonous effluents from the dyeing units were being let into the Noyyal river in Tirupur and the alarmed farmers petitioned the court seeking a ban on the dyeing units. The Madras High Court, in January this year, ordered the closure of 720 dyeing units, triggering the mass dislocation of the dyeing units.
One such unit has been started in the fields of a farmer in Terakanambi of Gundlupet taluk. An estimated 600 kg of poisonous dye is being used to colour the garments in this unit alone. The effluents are being let out into the check dam constructed at Chamahalla under the MGNREGS. The polluted water from the check dam makes its way to the Vadanakatte tank.
Sheshadri, the farmer on whose land the unit has been set up, told Deccan Herald that a Coimbatore-based industrialist had invested money in the unit and the dyeing unit began functioning a week ago.
Farmers in this border district wonder whether the authorities concerned think that lives of the people affected are not precious enough for them to act.