The planned relocation of tanneries from the Sri Lankan capital of  Colombo to the new Bata Atha Complex has been stalled owing to objections of local residents  and their political leaders, according to industry sources. The matter is now before the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka.

The complex was scheduled to start working from middle of the year and is being built with the financial assistance of NORAD and UNDP, in the southern district of Sri Lanka. The Government, through the Ministry of Constitutional Affairs and Industrial Development, has developed the infrastructure while a company called SLAT has been responsible for the civil works for the Common Effluent Treatment Plant, which has a capacity of 1,500 cubic metres per day. Of the  14 tanneries due for relocation, 12 will process from raw hides and skins up to wet blue leather/crust and finished, while the remaining two will be exclusively involved in vegetable tanning. An investment of over $20 million is expected in the re-location process through new civil works and new tanning machinery.

The primary objective of the proposed Bata-Atha Project is to relocate the existing tanneries from Colombo and its suburbs, which suffer from various technical constraints, as well as to provide a state of the art, eco-compatible facility for those tanneries. The main constraints at Colombo are the unavailability of land for expansion and the inability of factory owners to operate their own individual plants to treat the tannery wastewater.

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