Research Projects

Importance of the project in context of current status Leather industry makes a significant contribution to India’s foreign exchange earnings and employs about three million people. Tannery effluents, being voluminous and highly contaminated, when discharged untreated, damage the normal life of the receiving water bodies; and if they percolate into the ground for a prolonged period, will pollute the groundwater permanently and make it unfit for drinking, irrigation and domestic consumption. Since tannery effluent contains toxic chemicals which can have serious effects on biota and the environment, proper pre-treatment is essential. Yet small industries occasionally release their effluent directly into the environment (Kannan and Uperti, 2007). Vellore district is one of the largest leather manufacturing industrial areas in Tamil Nadu. The indiscriminate disposal of wastewater and sludge from tanning industries has led to chromium (Cr) contamination on agricultural lands and water bodies, resulting in several chromium contaminated ‘Hotspots’ in and around Vellore district. Eventually Cr is being taken up by the plants and enters into the food chain and also causing yield reduction of the tune of 25 to 40 %. The Vellore district have extensive industries such as textiles, leather tanneries, and small-scale dye industries. The Ambur Co-operative sugar mills ltd., Tirupattur Co-operative sugar mills ltd and the Vellore Co-operative sugar mills ltd are the three major sugar mills located in Vellore district. The area under sugarcane cultivation in Vellore district is about 5936 ha’s and the main by products from sugarcane is sugar, jaggery and sugarcane juice. The sugarcane trash is also used as cattle feed. Sugarcane is an important cash crop and sugarcane plants can bioaccumulate heavy metals from soils to levels above safe limits. Sugarcane is one of the world’s major food crops providing about 75% of the sugar used for human consumption (Sreenivasan et al., 1987; FAO, 2004). It is also source of molasses used in animal food industry, production of alcohol, ferment and glycerin (Leblebici and Kavas, 2000). Metal levels in stems were 80 – 90% of those found in roots, while the concentrations detected in leaves were lower than those in roots. Therefore, this study is proposed to identify the extent of chromium accumulation in sugarcane varieties grown in Vellore district of Tamil Nadu and to find out a suitable bioamendment, which reduces the chromium uptake, by sugarcane. The main objective of this study was • To determine the levels of heavy metal (Cr) contamination in the sugarcane cultivated fields in Vellore District. • To assess the level of chromium accumulated in sugarcane crop and sugarcane byproducts • To screen the sugarcane varieties tolerant to chromium contamination in soils polluted with tannery effluent • To develop an integrated approach with sugarcane crop and bio amendments for immobilizing chromium in contaminated soils