November 29, 2010
School of Business, Kochi
Second year MBA students at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, currently attending a class on Environmental Management and Sustainable Development, have been busy. After researching local environmental problems, they are proposing solutions for sustainable development. Their work is being recognized at forums around the country.
Another paper written by a student team, this time from the Kochi campus, was accepted for presentation at the upcoming International Conference on Environmental Science and Development – ICESD 2011 in Mumbai.
The student paper titled Environmental Issues of Textile Processing Units in Tirupur, Tamil Nadu was authored by Logesh S., Karthik R., Jayanth Sarathi N., K. Srinivasa Rao and Vijayanand K.
Earlier, a paper written by a student team from the Amritapuri campus was also accepted for presentation at the same conference. See News »
“Tirupur is a town located 50 kms from Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu,” the students wrote in their paper. “It has emerged as a leading site for the cotton knitwear industry in South India.”
The small town is responsible for an annual contribution of Rs. 11,000 crores ( Rs. 110 billion) in foreign exchange earnings for the country. Not only are products exported, the town also produces to meet the domestic demand in India.
Climactic conditions in the place – high temperature and low rainfall – facilitate the easy processing of yarn. However, the town is now under severe environmental stress caused by pollution that went unchecked for decades.
“In textile processing, bleaching and dyeing are two major activities that require a large amount of water,” the students wrote, in their paper.
“For the last twenty years, the bleaching and dyeing units located in and around Tirupur have polluted the Noyyal, a non-perennial river that ends in the Cauvery, near Karur. These units discharge their toxic effluents into the river.”
“Where earlier the river Noyyal was non-perennial, now it flows throughout the year because it receives effluent discharge from these units. Those towns and villages that are located downstream are also impacted.”
The authors studied the effluent treatment plants setup, concluding that these were inadequate. They recommended that the Govt. deploy additional plants for effluent treatment and discharge and also make adequate provisions for sludge storage and disposal.
“Current practices of water usage in Tirupur are not sustainable,” the authors concluded. “If unchecked, these will cause irreparable damage to the ecosystem, threatening not only the livelihoods of all those employed in Tirupur, but also the farmers in the vicinity of these textile units.”
