Pallavaram is a suburban town of Chennai Metropolitan. It is one of the important tannery clusters in Tamil Nadu. There are nearly 129 tannery units in and around Pammal/Pallavaram area. Pallavaram Tanners’ Industrial Effluent Treatment Company (PTIETC),a SPV organization promoted by the member tanneries has established a CETP for the benefit of wet operating tanneries in Pammal / Pallavaram area. The CETP with a capacity of 3000m3/day (3.0MLD) was established during 1995. The location of the Pallavaram CETP is shown in the following Figure.
Apart from tanneries, there are many downstream leather product industrial units including shoes, garments and other leather goods factories. The total annual turnover of the Pallavaram leather industrial sector is to the order of Rs.2000crores during 2010 would increase to Rs.3000crores on the current upgradation project.
DEVELOPMENT OF PALLAVARAM TANNERIES IN TANNING OPERATIONS
- The tanneries in Pallavaram area during the initial period of operations adopt different types of processes such as chrome tanning, vegetable tanning, raw to finish, semi-finish to finish operations, etc.
- During the period 1980-2000, due to the pollution problems in and around Pallavaram, Pammal and Chrompet area, mainly due to the discharge of high saline water, odour, TDS, etc., the tanneries reduced the raw to semi-finish operations and established the CETP during 1990-1995.
- From the year 2001 onwards, the pre-tanning (i.e. beam house) operations such as soaking, liming, removal of fleshing, deliming etc. have been totally discontinued by the tanneries in Pallavaram cluster to reduce the liquid and solid pollution discharges. The main chrome tanning process is also totally discontinued to control Chromium discharge in the effluent. The total pollution load interms of BOD, COD, SS, etc., which are reduced by about 60-70%, and the TDS are reduced by about 70%.
- The tanneries in Pallavaram Cluster process only semi-finish to finished leather. The semi-finish leather (i.e. wet blue and vegetable tanned leather) is received from all parts of India and other countries.