45 leather units in Agra to be shifted outside city

In yet another blow to the leather processing business of Agra, the Agra administration is planning to remove about 45 leather processing units outside the city, because of a recent notice from the UP High Court seeking justification for allowing these units to operate in a densely populated area of the town.

According to UP Pollution Control Department sources, there were dozens of cottage units functioning in the Khatikpara area of the old city, which were engaged in the processing of raw leather, employing most of the residents of this locality.

Recently, a petition was filed in the UP High Court against the operation of these units in the heart of the city and a notice has been served by the UP High Court asking why these units were being allowed to function when they were creating high-levels of pollution in the vicinity with their effluents.

Talking to Business Standard, A K Tiwari, regional pollution control officer, said that the leather processing units functioning in the Khatikpara area of Agra were basically a large cluster of cottage units that processed the skins of lesser animals like goats and sheep and then sold them to leather garment and silver foil manufacturers.

According to Tiwari, these units had been functioning since several decades in this locality but owing to the high levels of pollution and public nuisance generated by these units in the area, the UP Pollution Control Department has recommended that the units should be moved to a place outside the inhabited areas of the city. and away from any drinking water sources.

Accordingly, he said, the Agra Development Authority has been asked to develop an industrial cluster on the city's outskirts that would accommodate the leather processing units that shall be displaced from the city's interior shortly.

But shifting these units to the city's outskirts could create a logistical problem for the workers who would have to travel for over 10 kilometers every day to reach their place of work, a proposition that the owners of these units are not willing to accept and this could mean the closure of a number of these units that are either family-run or are functioning at an extremely small scale without enough financial support to withstand a move to outside the city.