Bangladesh News

Relocation of Hazaribagh tanneries, one of the worst polluters of environment smack in the middle of the capital, is being delayed due to a delay in setting up a central effluent treatment plant (CETP) at the Leather Estate in Savar, said industry insiders.

The delay is resulting in continuing wholesale pollution of the city’s environment including its rivers and canals.

Industry leaders said the older generation entrepreneurs were not aware of either the environmental issues or effluent treatment plants (ETP).

They also said installing individual ETPs is very costly, so they need government support to be efficient in waste management.

“According to the memorandum of understanding [MoU] signed in 2003, the government is supposed to install the CETP at the Leather Estate, and hand it over to the tannery owners for maintenance after two years,” said Shahin Ahmed, chairman of Bangladesh Tanners Association (BTA).

Admitting that they discharge liquid wastes into the city’s water bodies, he said, “When the CETP will be established, we will be able to reduce pollution, and also be able to efficiently manage our factories.”

He said development of the proposed Leather Estate is about to be completed with the government allotting 154 plots to tannery owners, all ready with utilities supply connections.

However, the issue of bearing the cost of setting up a CETP is yet to be settled, which is delaying the relocation, he added.

In 2003, the then government signed an MoU with Bangladesh Finished Leather and Leather Goods and Footwear Exporters Association (BFLLFEA), and with Bangladesh Tanners Association (BTA) to take up a Tk 175 crore project to shift the Hazaribagh tanneries to the Leather Estate in Savar by 2010, and the work started in 2005.

In 2008, the immediate past caretaker government re-examined the cost of setting up the CETP, which now stands at an estimated Tk 350 crore. The caretaker government urged the tannery owners to share the cost.

The owners, however, refused to share the cost saying most of them are not capable of paying extra money for a CETP.

“The government should consider that most tanners of Hazaribagh are small investors. So it is impossible for them to share the cost of installing a CETP and to bear the cost of relocation,” said Ahmed adding, “It’s a violation of the MoU to ask us to share the cost now.”

“At the same time, we can’t move to the Leather Estate until a CETP is installed there to reduce pollution levels,” he said adding again, “The procrastination in taking an initiative for gathering funds for the CETP is the main reason we are not being able to move to the estate.”

Another major problem of relocating the Hazaribagh tanneries is that most of the tannery owners have their lands and factories mortgaged to banks, for capital. It is impossible for the tanners to relocate until the banks release their mortgaged properties, said an executive member of BTA seeking anonymity.

He also said the tanners are also reluctant to shift their factories until the government compensates them for the relocation cost they will incur. They are demanding compensation of a total of Tk 250 crore for the relocation, but the government is not willing, he added.

Leather has been one of the oldest export items of the country since the British colonial period. The tannery industry first sprang up in Narayanganj and later was shifted to Hazaribagh, the northwestern part of the capital, in 1990.

Currently, 195 tanneries at Hazaribagh are responsible for severe pollution in and around the area, as the factories dump untreated tannery waste into the cities water bodies including the rivers and canals. It also pollutes the air, and emanates an unbearable stench.

According to the Bangladesh Department of Environment (DoE), the tanneries discharge nearly 22,000 cubic metres of untreated and highly toxic liquid waste every day into the water bodies including the river Buriganga, the lifeline of the capital.

Moreover, every day 100 tons of solid waste including trimmings of finished leather, shaving dusts, hair, animal flesh, and trimmings of raw hides and skins are dumped into the Buriganga and on nearby lands, contaminating the soil and the water, said DoE.

Leather is still one of the most important export items of the country, as it earns an impressive amount of foreign currencies. Currently, the overall market size of the leather industry is around Tk 3,500 crore a year, with export figures standing at $284 million in fiscal 2007-’08, said the industry insiders.