Impact of Dyeing Industrial Effluents on the Groundwater Quality in Kancheepuram (India)

Dyeing and printing of textile being a traditional industry of Kancheepuram town, a good number of textile industries along with dyeing and printing clusters have come up in the area. The dyeing units in Kancheepuram municipality and the surrounding villages are under constant threat of ground water contamination with chemicals of dyes. The present study evaluates the groundwater quality in and around the Kancheepuram town of Tamil Nadu with reference to drinking and irrigation purposes. Twenty groundwater samples were collected from various parts of the dyeing industrial region and the samples were analysed with standard analytic methods. The concentrations of total dissolved solids (1138 to 2574 mg/L), chloride (216 to 847 mg/L), total hardness (225 to 760 mg/L), sulphate (64 to 536 mg/L), nitrate (up to 58 mg/L), iron (up to 2.3 mg/L) and lead (up to 0.281 mg/L) were found to be higher and exceeded the permissible limits of BIS and WHO standards. The user specific water quality indices (USWQI) of each groundwater sample were evaluated for both purposes. The USWQI of the groundwater samples varied from 85 to 30 for drinking purpose and 89 to 50 for irrigation purpose. The results show that, the groundwater quality in the present study area can be categorized under 'good' for irrigation purpose and 'fair' for drinking purpose. Access to safe drinking water supply is one of the basic needs of society and hence a comprehensive plan of action is sought to curb groundwater contamination in the studied region.