Kanpur's leather industry relocates to greener pastures in Bengal

Demonetisation hit them hard and local sales plummeted. Then the crackdown on cow slaughter affected the supply of raw material and now the National Green Tribunal (NGT) order on removing all polluting units along the Ganga river is sounding the death knell for leather industry in Kanpur.

Amid what is said to be the biggest slump in the leather industry here, the tanners of Kanpur are moving to West Bengal, Bangladesh and to other greener pastures to stay afloat.

The situation has been triggered by the infrastructure curbs imposed because of tighter pollution control norms, a big jump in the cost of treatment of tannery waste and orders drying up in the midst of the lack of availability of cow leather due to a ban on cow slaughter in Uttar Pradesh.

40 leather industrialists have already rented or bought tanneries in Kolkata. Some have entered into partnerships in Vietnam, Turkey, and some European countries for finished cow leather.

Nearly 100 tannery units have taken land to start tanneries in Bantala, where the West Bengal government is providing plots at Rs 2,865 per square metre to tanners from Uttar Pradesh.

Nayyar Jamal, president of Jajmau Tanners' Association, said: "Of the 402 listed tanneries, only 215 small and big ones are operational now. These, too, function with a lot of riders that have made business next to impossible. Still people are pulling through in the hope that the situation will improve someday."