Dalmiya and the Calcutta Leather Complex

Calcutta, May 26: An administrator will be appointed to sort out problems plaguing the Calcutta Leather Complex amid allegations about faulty waste pipes supplied by Dalmiya & Co, the developers of the cluster.

“We have decided to appoint an administrator who will look into the problems and review the management of the complex,” commerce and industries secretary Sabyasachi Sen said after a business meet today.

Today’s announcement follows the May 23 meeting Sen held with representatives of CLC Tanners’ Association and Dalmiya & Co on the problems in the enclave in Bantala, near Tangra on the city’s eastern fringes.

“There is already an officer for the complex, Moushumi Guha Roy, but we have to figure out how to upgrade her role by giving her powers from organisations like the pollution control board and others,” Sen said on the sidelines of a business meet.

The administrator will be in place till a township authority, like Nabadiganta in the IT hub of Salt Lake’s Sector V, is set up for the leather complex. Such an authority will comprise representatives of the panchayat, tanners and pollution control board officials.

Sen said the state might write to the Centre to set up a leather research institute, something Dalmiya & Co could not.

However, Dalmiya and Co promoter Jagmohan Dalmiya, whose company had set up the complex on a build-operate-transfer basis, shrugged off responsibility, saying he had nothing to do with its operations since its handover to the tanners three years ago.

“We have nothing to do with management problems anymore. Appointing an administrator is their problem,” he said.

According to a member of the tanners’ association, the main problem is in the pipes carrying waste to the effluent-treatment plant. “The pipes, built by the developers, are getting clogged. Why will we clog it up when we have to pay for the use of the system at the rate of around Rs 8 per square metre. We have agreed to the appointment of an administrator,” he said.

Allegations have also surfaced that units in the complex are installing tubewells in violation of regulations on groundwater use, and that the sludge thrown up during leather processing is not being disposed in vats. The tanners’ association and Dalmiya have traded charges over these alleged lapses.

The tanners say they are considering a government suggestion that the management of the effluent plant be handed to outsiders who can manage it more efficiently.

Another bone of contention is the 120-acre IT park in the complex. A member of the tanners’ association contended that all of the 1,100 acres acquired by the government and leased for the purpose was meant for leather units.