Taking cognizance of National Green Tribunal’s guidelines, the Haryana State Pollution Control Board (HSPCB) has made it mandatory for all textile industries to treat and recycle wastewater while disposing into the Yamuna. The textile units have been asked to install the required infrastructure by December 2016. The board has instructed to set up ETP and a reverse osmosis (RO) plant to recycle and re-use the discharged water.
Earlier, National Green Tribunal had instructed HSPCB to issue guidelines to the industrial units on the setting up of ‘zero discharge units’. According to the green court, a ‘zero discharge unit’ is the one that does not discharge any amount of liquid effluent, not even treated effluent.
However, according to the Textile unit owners, attaining zero discharge unit in the State would not be viable because of two obvious reasons. First, there is no technology to put in place. About 5% of the entire wastewater might remain untreated. Second, the prescribed technologies are not viable as the cost of installing an ETP is somewhere around `4-5 crore, which is not affordable for many units.
