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Project to become operational by May 2005

Tirupur water project to benefit processing industry

Tirupur, the knitwear city of India, has emerged the largest exporter of knitwear from the country. However, even as the town is registering significant growth in exports, lack of infrastructure has been holding back the full potential of Tirupur. Reena Mital reports.

Absence of good quality water has affected not just the Tirupur household community, but also the industrial sector, including textile processing. According to experts, quality of knit processing is not very good in Tirupur. "Poor quality of water results in usage of higher amount of dyes, and other chemicals, resulting in poor dyeing quality, higher costs, and higher effluent", according to Mr M K Bardhan, director, SASMIRA.

To solve the problem of water, the New Tirupur Area Development Corporation (NTADCL) was set up in 1995, to implement the intergrated water supply and sanitation system, which aims at providing quality water supply to Tirupur household, industry and trade.

Speaking to Express Textile, Mr Sameer Vyas, managing director, NTADCL, said, "This is the first water and sanitation project in the country, which has been structured on the basis of private financing and participation, with the largest ever private investment of almost Rs 1,000 crore. The project is based on the public-private participation model, implemented with the help of a number of agencies, the state government, IL&FS, USAID, IDBI, SBI, LIC, etc. It has also received FDI from an overseas based equity fund. All the formalities have been completed - the funds have been acquired, contracts signed, land acquired, etc, the system is now under construction, and the project is expected to be completed by May 2005."

The project will supply 185 million litres of water to Tirupur per day, from River Bhavani, which is 55 kms from the town. The quality would meet the potable standards, and is expected to result in significant health improvement of the community there. Besides, the costs to the industry would also go down. The ‘right first time’ concept is badly affecting textile processing, and other such activities, due to water shortage. Today, the industry is able to achieve ‘the right first time’ target only 60-70 per cent of the times, which will go up to 90 per cent once the project is operational, it is ascertained.

Water costs are also expected to go down significantly. For instance, the industrial sector today pays around Rs 30 per 1,000 litres, in addition to buying its remaining requirement from tankers, etc, and also treating the same to acceptable standards, all of which finally increases cost to as much as Rs 80 per 1,000 litres. Once the project is in place, the cost of water to the sector would be Rs 45 per 1,000 litres. Similarly, for the household sector too, cost savings would be quiet large, not just in terms of the cost of water, but also the reduction in health costs. Besides, water would be available 24 hours, as against two-three hours once in three-four days now. The company expects the project to run without hassles for at least 30 years.

According to Mr Hari Sankaran, executive director (infrastructure), IL&FS, "This is a very good model, which can be replicated in other centres too. The model is flexible, in that, IL&FS is not committed to any one format, but to the approach. Any centre which has inadequate infrastructure, but a lot of economic activity, will be in a position to support infrastructure development. Textile clusters have the economic activity, and infrastructure development would not be a problem, once it is clear what the centre aims at achieving."