Environmental And Employment Concerns In Kanpur

Closure of tanneries in Kanpur brings environmental and employment concerns to a head

- Puja Awasthi

An overpowering smell of chemical and contamination, made worse by the still summer air, hangs over the riverside slum of Budhiaghat in Kanpur.

“I will kill myself if anyone shows me one drop of black water falling into the Ganga because of my work. The river belongs to everyone,” says Kishwari, a resident. The work she refers to falls under leather trade—the district’s most famous industry that is over a century old. More than seven months after the government initiated a major clampdown, prompted by the high levels of river pollution the industry was creating, loss of livelihood has brought the misery of the kind never reported before.

While the industry involves a trade of many parts, the government’s anti-pollution measure is focused on tanning, which is the treatment and preparation of rawhide for manufacturing. Tanning requires large amounts of water and several chemicals, the most significant of which is chromium. When pumped back into rivers, it makes the water and soil toxic and aquatic life unsustainable. In Kanpur’s Jajmau area and its neighboring district of Unnao, where most of the state’s tanneries are sited, the level of chromium in water has been persistently found to be much higher than the acceptable limit of 0.05mg/liter.

The ‘Status of Trace and Toxic Metals in Indian Rivers’, a 2018 report of the water resources ministry that cited the above limit, notes: “It [chromium] can cause allergic reactions, such as skin rash... respiratory problems... lung cancer and death.”