Tex Talk

Court order vs export order

P S Sundar

The Madras high court order directing the closure of 660 bleaching and dyeing units, has put the Tirupur knitwear industry in a state of turmoil.

Already, work has come to a standstill in all these units, the workers are migrating out of town and the power men are bent on disconnecting electricity supply to the listed units. Meetings of the affected factory owners, politicians’ promises, industry association leaders’ representations - all go on daily. The reason is: Without bleaching and dyeing units, knitwear manufacture and export cannot take place. So, it is an ironic case of hands full of export orders and still factory full of problems!

However, this court directive has not come out of the blue.

First, the court passed strictures against the government for allowing the pollution to go on for a long time. Second, the court wanted the units to install Reverse Osmosis (RO) plants. Third, the court showed its seriousness when it ordered the closure of 47 units which failed to install RO plants. Fourth, the court ruled the working of the units for just five days a week. Obviously, the industry players and the government should have seen the seriousness of the systematic warning the court has been issuing to ensure that the area is pollution free. Now, the advocate general Mr N R Chandran, has informed the court that out of the 690 units, only 30 units had taken steps to install RO plants and paid 25 per cent of the cost in advance. That has led the bench examining the case to observe that unless the remaining 660 units are ordered to be closed, they would never take any step in this direction. Of course, the court has said that it would pass further orders on seeing the proof of their paying the advance and the bona fide intention to install the RO plants. “It is agonising to see that all the periodical directions given by the court have been disobeyed,” the bench had remarked.

As the court has observed, these units did not see the merit of using the opportunity granted to them all the while. On the one hand, the government did not enforce the law as and when they saw the problem and now the court is doing its duty. The affected units contend that it is not a willful and deliberate ignoring of the court-given opportunity or the government rule, but their inability to fund a project running into crores of rupees. So, everyone knew that one day or the other, this might happen, but somehow, the concerned units did not do what they should have done.

While everyone acknowledges that closure of 660 units would impact almost five lakh workers connected directly or indirectly with the knitwear industry, all environment conscious people are concerned over the repercussions of polluting the river, ground water, air and the soil. How the case ends is a different aspect. What is more relevant right now is the impression the industrial players are giving to the world, more so, the importers and the competitors. Several exporters told this columnist in Tirupur and Karur this week that getting over the litigation is one matter, but winning back the confidence in the global market is completely another. They feel that a sizeable portion of the gain from quota abolition would be lost if the export orders are not fulfilled in time and to the satisfaction of the importers. But, no question of talking about export order without fulfilling the court order!

Certainly, everything the court says should be respected and followed. For this, the industry and the government should join hands and resolve the issue.