In the industrial belt of Jajmau, at the city’s periphery, there’s visible anger at the government. In the name of cleaning the Ganga, the tannery industry has been vilified and strangulated, workers claim.
Ahead of the Kumbh Mela this January, the Yogi Adityanath government ordered the tanneries shut — to prevent their effluents from contaminating the Ganga.
However it’s over a month since the Kumbh Mela ended and the closure hasn’t been lifted. “Effectively, it’s been six months since we’ve operated. Business is down by nearly 80%,” says Naiyer Jamaal, who runs the Makhdoom tannery here and a former secretary of the Small Tanners Association. “In spite of being non-operational, we’ve been slapped with a bill of ₹8.4 million by the Pollution Control Board for operation and maintenance of the effluent treatment plant.”
In a rally earlier this week, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav proclaimed that “however many crores (of rupees) it takes, we will open the tanneries and also clean the Ganga…there are livelihoods at stake here.”
The Jajmau tanneries, of which 260 are operational out of the registered 405, employ about 200,000 workers. Through the closure of tanneries there’s also been an effect on allied industries that supply chemicals for the tanning industry, said Anees, a tanner.
Ram Kumar, the Samajwadi Party nominee for the Lok Sabha polls, said the tapping of the Sisamau naala was a “trick” played by the government to deceive people into believing that the Ganga had been cleaned in Kanpur. “It’s because the tanneries are shut there’s less load on the sewage lines. This hides the fact that the promised treatment plants haven’t been developed. In several villages, overloaded sewer lines overflow into dwellings,” he claimed, “This is a major poll issue and the residents will reflect their dissatisfaction with their vote.”
In March, Prime Minister Narendra Modi claimed that his government was making the “impossible possible” as far cleaning the Ganga was concerned. This was based on the city administration’s claim to have prevented sewage and industrial effluents in the city’s most infamous drain, the Sisamau naala, that spewed about 140 million litres of muck everyday, from emptying into the Ganga.
Kanpur contributes the highest pollution load among all of the cities of Uttar Pradesh, which itself accounts for 75% of the pollution load in the Ganga. Consequently, Kanpur has garnered about ₹1,000 crore of funds — more than any other city — from the ₹20,000 crore-plus Namami Gange Programme, the government’s flagship programme to clean the river.
However many BJP voters don’t see Namami Gange-work as a key factor ahead of polling on Monday.
Satya Dev Pachauri, the BJP candidate for the Kanpur city constituency and a Minister in the current dispensation, says, “Promoting industry, improved solid waste management, and having a metro rail” are the major prongs of his campaign. “My victory will strengthen Modiji and make our country stronger,” the two-time MLA adds. The Ganga cleaning progress doesn’t feature in the BJP’s list of achievements.
The prospects of the BJP will not be dimmed by the tanner’s unrest, says Mr. Pachauri. “We cannot allow the tanneries to pollute and authorities — from the National Green Tribunal to the Central Pollution Control Board — have pointed to the excessive chromium content from tanneries. How can that be ignored?” he asks.
