Closure of dying units: Tirupur delegation meets TN ministers

Coimbatore, Feb 4 (PTI) Tamil Nadu ministers today assuredmembers of the Tirupur garment associations to inform ChiefMinister M Karunanidhi about their grievances over closure ofdyeing and bleaching units following a Madras High Courtorder.

Tirupur Exporters Association (TEA) President A Shaktivelalong with other delegates met Handlooms Textiles Minister K KS S R Ramachandran, Highways and Minor Ports MinisterVellakoil Swaminathan and Environment Minister T P M Mohideenin Chennai, sources said.

Tirupur MLA C Govindasamy (DMK) also took part in themeeting, they said.

The delegates explained to the ministers the problemsfaced by the industry in the aftermath of the HC order, whichon January 28 ordered the closure of all 754 dyeing andbleaching units in Tirupur for discharging effluents pollutingthe Noyyal river, on whose banks Tirupur is located.

The delegation is scheduled to meet the ministers again onFebruary 8, they said.

Meanwhile, normal life was affected in and around Tirupuras a bandh called by Hindu Munnani seeking immediateintervention of both the Centre and state governments into theissue, was successful.

More 5,000 hosiery and knitwear units, which were directlyhit by the closure of the dyeing units, were closed, as about2.5 lakh workers abstained from work expressing solidaritywith the bandh, police said.