Tirupur textile units to adopt new technology to rescue knitwear industry

Tirupur (Tamil Nadu), July 29 (ANI): In a bid to salvage a failing knitwear industry, textile outfits in Tirupur, Tamil Nadu, have decided to adopt a new technology to reduce emission of pollutants during dyeing.

Hundreds of textile units owners attended a conference on July 28 organised by the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) TEA, in collaboration with the Green Textile movement.

An organiser told reporters about the technology that would go a long way in boosting the industry.

"The technology is very simple, involving only the natural factor that is available around us. For example in the mechanical evaporator, we have to burn a lot of firewood and evaporate the water physically, whereas in here, we do not evaporate the water by any external forces," said Raja Shanmugam, Chairman NIFT-TEA.

The water is poured from the top, it goes through a filter made of some unwanted firewood, therefore the entire process through the water, it automatically evaporates the water, therefore it does not contaminate nor the usage of the firewood," Shanmugam added.

Pollutants produced from dyeing units that had earlier led the untreated effluent water directly into the rivers.

Following directions from India's apex Supreme Court that had ordered to close down all the dyeing units, which could not maintain the industry norms for zero percent discharge.

Shanmugam added that the new technology was extremely economical move that would considerably reduce production costs.

"Main deterring factor in achieving the zero liquidity charge and the cost involved in evaporating the main solution that is the outflow of the-output of the process. Because of which many people have the tendency to violate the norms in order to reduce the cost, but after the inception of this technology, we need not worry about the cost at all," said Shanmugam.

Tirupur is a small district situated in the southern part of Tamil Nadu and has been termed as the knitwear city of India.

More than 80 percent of knitwear garments exports of the country are contributed from Tirupur.

However the industry started to slow down due to various internal and external factors, which had led to closure of many medium and small knitwear units from Tirupur leaving thousands of labourers jobless. (ANI)