The textile dyeing and printing mills at Sachin GIDC which require around 60 million litre per day (MLD) of water, against which around 50% is managed through private tankers, a huge additional cost for unit owners, which is getting unbearable now.

Following acute shortage of water for the last two months, about 60-odd textile units are on the verge of closure. Forget about running the mills, thousands of workers employed in the mills are not even getting water to drink.

A delegation of textile processors from Sachin GIDC on Monday submitted a memorandum to the notified area officer (NAO) of Sachin GIDC for resuming water supply at the earliest, or else the mills will have to down their shutters.

Sachin Textile Process Industries Welfare Association (STPIWA) president Vinod Agarwal said that for the last 10 days, the units are getting water supply for one hour in a day. The lake from where the water is supplied to the units is not getting enough water. Thus, they have asked the notified area authority to restore water supply or else the industry will have to shut down.

A project for the supply of tertiary treated water has been submitted to the Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) and the unit owners are eagerly waiting for its final nod. If they get 35 MLD tertiary treated water from the SMC, rest of the water requirement can be met from the notified area authority's pipeline network.

Industry sources said the water supply was severed two months ago following repair work of Chalthan canal which was undertaken by the irrigation department. Textile mills have been spending lakhs of rupees to purchase water from private tankers and are operating units at 50% capacity.

Each of the textile mill has incurred losses to the tune of Rs30 lakh in the last two months taking total losses to the tune of over Rs20 crore.