JODHPUR - While the Indian authorities continue to make the right noises about cleaning up the country's notoriously polluting textile industry, evidence on the ground suggests there is still a long way to go. Researchers from the University of Jodhpur in state of Rajasthan recently collected effluent samples from ten main industrial drainage sites in Balotra, a town which is famous for its dyeing and printing process industries, with around 5,000 units engaged in cotton and synthetic textile printing and dyeing. They found the heavy metals of iron, lead, zinc, copper, nickel and chromium to be present in "alarming concentrations," with, particularly, the concentration of lead and chromium in the industrial effluents comfortably exceeding the limit set by WHO for the discharge of industrial surface water.
