India is about to create a set of incentives for the tanning cluster, the same tanneries which were hardly hindered so far. Indeed the modus operandi of the Indian government, while dealing with the leather industry, looks contradictory. In fact, first Hindu radical politics (by the way, Prime Minister Modi’s party, BJP, is an ultra-nationalist one) led, over the months, the tanning industries to a standstill, owing to lack of raw materials; yet now India is going to deliver several measures and allocate around 26 billion rupees (that is, over 340 million euros), from 2018 to 2020, to support the infrastructure renovation of the leather industry (including footwear and finished product). Such is the plan of the Indian government, whose upcoming actions are meant to foster the opening of 320,000 new jobs in the tanning industry: let’s see how things go. Meanwhile, the overall situation of Indian industry keeps being peculiar, so to speak. For instance, in Krishnapatnam (a port city located in the region of Andhra Pradesh) local councils are attending to the opening of a new tanning industrial cluster: the aim is to replace the currently working one, which is causing pollution problems. The project looks magnificent: 532 acres, 15,000 employees. What’s the problem then? In order to make things easier, with regard to water consumption and sewage disposal, they decided to keep tanneries out of the project. In other words, there is no more place for Krishnapatnam drums.
Puzzling India allocates 340 million euros for the leather industry after battling against tanneries for months
