Nellore: In a bid to quell the dissent expressed by various public forums and locals relating to serious pollution issues against the proposed Krishnapatnam International Leather Complex, the state government has decided to remove the leather tanning activity from the project at the recent board meeting of KPILC.
APIIC Chairman Dr P. Krishnaiah has revealed this while speaking to this correspondent. Stressing that tanning is the main contributor for pollution, he said there is no need to worry about the mega project since the tanning process has been excluded now.
The project is coming up in 532 acres at an investment of Rs 281 crore and it is expected to provide employment opportunity to 15,000 people. Government of India had approved environment clearance in 2014 itself but an unrelenting agitation against the project led the project remain as non-starter. Residents of 10 surrounding villages have been staging protests and marred the proceedings of the public hearing held two times in the past. Notwithstanding the opposition department of industrial policy and promotion cleared the project during tenth empowerment committee in a meeting held in 2016.
The Centre will be providing Rs 125 crore for the implementation of the project with grant/funding under the Mega Leather Cluster Scheme of Government of India and the state government had already allotted a tract of 532.69 acre for the project. Incidentally, the project was originally allotted for Tamil Nadu but it was shifted to AP after people of the neighbouring state vehemently opposed the project citing serious threat to environment and health of the people.
As per the project report, KPILC proposes to draw sea water of 30 million litres per day (MLD) to the proposed desalination plant thereby to meet the water requirement of 10.5 million litres per day. Leather complex will be using the freshwater generated by the desalination plant for construction and for its process requirements during operation stage. Out of the total water quantity, fresh water of 10.5 MLD will be generated and remaining 19.5 MLD will be discharged into the sea.
No ground water is to be used in any phase of the project. The conditions while issuing environment clearance include green belt of 15 meters all around the proposed complex. Project officials claim that the water requirement will come down by 50 percent because of the absence of the leather tanning now.
