Field wells in Ullukurukkai village of Thimjepalli panchayat in Krishnagiri district are filled to the brim in summer. It is paddy harvest time. Nurseries are being prepared and fields are being prepared for growing crops at other places in the district. But Punjabi The village land (dry agricultural land) near the iPhone manufacturing plant of Tata Electronics Private Limited (TEPL) has become worryingly quiet. A hundred meters away, the eerie silence is interrupted by the sounds of construction activity. Workers are busy building a wall to demarcate the boundary of the TEPL plant from the surrounding farmland. There is a continuous flow of water under the plinth of the new boundary wall of the plant and into the drainage channel running through the field.
A few meters inside the boundary wall, there are large embankments of huge rain-water harvesting structures or plant seepage ponds. In the last week of May, several acres of farmland at Ulukurukkai were inundated with water, which reportedly overflowed from the plant’s seepage ponds. The company had then told officials that it was only rain water from the ponds. “There were two incidents of outages from the plant (in the last few months) and both times 5 cm and 6.75 cm rainfall was recorded,” Collector C. Dinesh Kumar said. But farmers say it is not just rain water, but “chemical water” from these ponds that has overflowed into their fields.
Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) issued a show cause notice to TEPL in May 2026. It reported TDS (total dissolved solids) in water samples collected from rainwater ponds ranged from 1,916 milligrams per liter (mg/L) to 2,450 mg/litre (not less than 500 ppm or not more than 1,000 ppm for percolation ponds), against the norm. It marked the BOD, or biological oxygen demand (dissolved oxygen required for the breakdown of organic matter) in the range of 12 mg/litre to 78 mg/litre and the COD (chemical oxygen demand, indicating contamination) in the range of 48 mg/litre to 160 mg/litre – both values well above the acceptable limit of less than 30 mg/litre. The TDS range was determined from samples collected on three occasions at three different points between December and May.
promising start
It was in 2021 that TEPL chose Nagamangalam near Hosur to set up its iPhone component manufacturing unit. The move was seen as a major win for Tamil Nadu’s industrial portfolio and Hosur’s manufacturing ecosystem which was diversifying into electronics. The facility expanded with the commencement of operations at the Phase II plant last November. The farmers were happy with the arrival of a “good corporate company” in their midst. “They say Tata is a good company. If they are employing so many people, they must be doing only good, we thought,” says Pushparaj, who now leads a farmers’ protest against alleged waste discharge. “Don’t we know what rain water is? It is not rain water,” Mr Pushparaj says repeatedly. “We have grown up in this soil and this water.”
Two sources in the district administration said that one night in December 2025, the pumping system of the sewage treatment plant (STP) at the TEPL complex broke down. The Hindu. One of them said, “The untreated water was released into the rainwater harvesting pond. Then there were complaints from farmers. When the water was collected, the stench was bad. But, if it was trade effluent, the TDS would be much higher. It cannot be said that it was completely untreated trade discharge, but certainly partially treated effluent.”
business waste
Trade effluent is any liquid waste from a business, trade or industrial premises. Traditional trade effluent treatment systems do not correct high TDS levels. TEPL is a Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD) unit that uses Multiple Effect Evaporator (MEE) for its effluent treatment. The raw trade effluent is treated through a reverse osmosis (RO) process that returns low TDS water, which can be reused for gardening. However, the discharge from the RO process (RO reject) will have higher TDS concentration. This RO reject then passes through a series of evaporators (MEE) and the water is condensed for reuse. The MEE reject, which again will have high TDS values, is finally passed through an Agitated Thin Film Dryer (ATFD) which turns the high-TDS rejects into powder. This makes TEPL a zero discharge plant, where no water or effluent technically leaves the plant.
However, the statements of two witnesses at the plant corroborate the allegations made by the farmers. They indicate that the ZLD environmental mandate may exist only on paper. According to him, trade effluents regularly bypass the ETP and enter the collection ponds along with the STP discharge. When production is high and waste material generation exceeds the ETP capacity, the trade effluent from the anodizing process will be stored in tanks and discharged at night and during rains, claim two persons at the plant. “The incoming production stream (trade effluent) will be highly acidic with a pH level of 0-1. The pH value must be chemically raised to reach neutral before the effluent is fed into the treatment line. But this is chemical intensive, expensive and time consuming for high volumes. The capacity of the ETP was initially only 60 kilolitres (60,000 litres), but the plant can sometimes generate up to 100 kilolitres of trade effluent, and access to excess drain Will go,” said a source who has worked at ETP. How often does it happen sometimes? “Two or three times a week, but the frequency depends on production,” the second source said. “The trade flow will have very high TDS – 6,000 or 10,000. But when connected to the STP line, which will have higher volume but much lower TDS, the final TDS number will fall and will be offset from the permissible limit. Valves will be opened in rain, the TDS will be diluted.”
“We use caustic soda to boost the pH value. The production team will send a mail the next day informing about the incoming effluent. Either we achieve this by dumping the effluent already filled in the tanks (pending treatment) into the drain or ask them to stop the production. The production cannot be stopped or can be stopped only for a day or two. So the effluent will be sent to the drain and STP water will be poured over it.” But what about the metal remains? “There will be no metal residue, which will settle, but the TDS of the trade effluent will appear high, and this gets settled when mixed with STP water,” the source said.
Drowning crops: Farmers in the area complain of low yields due to polluted water entering their fields. | Photo courtesy: B. Jothi Ramalingam
consent to operate
On November 24, 2025, TNPCB issued operating consent for expansion of TEPL Phase I. The order mentions manufacturing of 3.74 crore metal cases for iPhones per year. The order also mentions the disposal points of sewage discharge (for gardening, toilet flushing and cooling towers) and trade effluent discharge (recycling process and conversion to salt), none of which should be discharged into seepage ponds meant for groundwater recharge. On December 8, 2025, Mr. Pushparaj, on behalf of the farmers, petitioned TEPL regarding “inaction on their previous complaints of stink and dumping of ‘chemical waste’ in seepage ponds”. The petition said this had been going on “for three months” (before December) but no action was taken on his complaint.
This February, his coriander fields faced another such flood from, among others, the plant’s ponds, he said, showing colored printouts of the submerged crop to the district administration. “I was told to be patient, as the treatment plant will be ready soon,” says Mr Pushparaj. “Production in the second phase started a year ago, but the ETP was commissioned only four months ago,” the source said.
The Hindu These witness accounts from inside the plant sent questions to TEPL to comment, but did not receive any official communication in response. However, TEPL had issued a statement last week saying that its TDS numbers were within acceptable limits and the TNPCB had closed its investigation. TNPCB did not respond to calls to confirm the development.
adequate treatment facilities
Collector Mr Kumar rejected the testimony of the residents and said the plant was a ZLD facility and the adequacy of the treatment facilities was ensured before giving consent. Based on inspections, verification of records and analysis of samples, no evidence was found to establish that industrial effluents were diverted from the treatment system or mixed with sewage for dilution and released into seepage ponds. “Additionally, samples collected from the ponds and nearby wells were analyzed and the results did not indicate contamination caused by the discharge of industrial effluents from the unit,” he said. Another official also claimed that Mr Pushparaj was working on an agenda of demanding material compensation from the company.
However, the fields tell a different story, and Mr Pushparaj is not the only one affected. Nagalakshmi, who has just three-fourths of an acre of land, had harvested 300 bags of cucumbers last summer and 500 bags last year. This week, she was standing near a crop of cucumbers on Day 25 that were only ankle high, when it should have reached her waist. Ms. Nagalakshmi had built a bund so that “dirty water” could not enter her field. “The ‘dirty water’ that was here till yesterday has now washed away. That’s why the soil is wet.” The story of low yields resonates across the region. Horticultural crops are grown here throughout the year, except paddy crop at this time of the year. Farmers cultivate cauliflower, beans, cucumber, ragi and flowers through drip irrigation. They suspect that because the plant drains its waste water into stormwater ponds, which are designed to facilitate seepage into the soil, the waste material seeps into their wells. “In other villages, the water level is low. Here, our wells are overflowing, with leakages showing from their ponds,” says Ramesh. “The water from our wells tasted like ‘tender coconut’ water,” says village head Krishnan. “For one and a half years, farm workers used to drink water from these wells, but now farm workers bring their own water because the well water has deteriorated and is smelling.”
The Hindu Collected two water samples: one from the outlet channel, which is also the first point of discharged water that was continuously flowing below the plinth of the plant’s newly constructed boundary wall, and the other from a nearby field well. The TDS values were 1,789 and 1,539 respectively (safe limit 1,000 ppm), while the pH was 7.88 and 6.81 respectively (acceptable limit 5.5 to 6.5). Mr Pushparaj’s April water sample has TDS 1,721 and pH 8.09. “It is not at all conducive to agriculture. Farmers will also suffer skin irritation,” says a former joint director of horticulture in Hosur. He said higher TDS would affect drip lines and borewells. “They can cultivate oilseeds, but eventually they have to give up their land because it will suck out all the nutrients.”
When asked about compensation for the loss suffered by farmers, the Collector said that the company was asked to do continuous TDS monitoring. It will also have to be ensured that there is no waterlogging during heavy rains. “If necessary, we will ask them to use HTPE (high density polyethylene) lining in rainwater harvesting ponds to prevent further mixing with groundwater, as demanded by farmers,” he said.
