2248 Introduction Industrial effluents is one of the major problems through- out the world. It was increasing at an alarming rate due to urbanization and industrialization. Tanning is one of the old- est industries in the world. During ancient times, tanning ac- tivities organized to meet the local demands of leather foot- wear, drums and musical instruments. With the growth of population, the increasing requirement of leather and its prod- ucts led to the establishment of large commercial tanneries. Two methods have adopted for tanning of rawhide/skin viz. vegetable tanning and chrome tanning. The production pro- cesses in a tannery can split into four main categories: (1) hide and skin storage and beam house operations, (2) tanyard operations, (3) post-tanning operations and (4) finishing op- erations 1,2 . Water used in these industries creates huge quan- tity of effluent that has potential to hazard environmental because of the toxic chemical and heavy metals in their ef- fluent 3,4 . The effluent from the tannery industry considered as a severe environmental threat throughout the world 5 . Sig- nificant problems of tannery effluent are toxic heavy metals like chromium, chloride, lime with high dissolved and sus- J. Indian Chem. Soc., Vol. 97, No. 11a, November 2020, pp. 2248-2254 Effects on some crops growth under the tannery effluent Nekram Rawal Department of Civil Engineering, Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology Allahabad, Prayagraj, Allahabad-211 004, Uttar Pradesh, India E- mail: nrrawal@mnnit.ac.in Manuscript received online 10 October 2020, revised and accepted 27 November 2020 The tannery industry, one of the oldest and most important industries, uses an enormous amount of freshwater for leather processing and releases a huge amount of toxic effluent every day. The rapid growth of industries in par with the threatening population lasted to the high discharge of industrial wastewater spoiling groundwater quality, soil and vegetation in that area. The effective management of tannery effluent is the need of the hour. In this study, tannery effluent was collected at Shobhapur village, Meerut city and physico-chemical properties analyzed. The effluent was treated with 0% (control), 25%, 50%, and 100% concentration of effluent. The main crops species in the area of study are Pennisetum typhoidis (Millet), Hordeum vulgare (Barley), Vigna mungo (Urad), Cicer arietinum (Black gram) and Trigonella foenum-graecum (Methi) are grown in control or with effluent in triplicates. Full strength effluent concentration caused a reduction in biomass accumulation and reproductive growth. The accumulation of metal from wastewater to crops after ten days did not follow any particular pattern and had very little or no concentration on it. The treatment designated W4 (25% effluent + 75% tap water) showed a good rate of germina- tion, growth of seedlings and can use for the cultivation of selected crop species. Keywords: Tannery effluents, seed germination, seed growth, moisture content, adverse effect. pended solids and other pollutants 6 . The continuous input of wastes containing poisonous metals on the agricultural land causes an imbalance in the ecosystem. The crops growing under such habitats accumulate high amount of toxic met- als, which in turn are being assimilated and transferred within food chain by the process of biomagnifications 7 and becomes a risk factor for human beings 8 . At higher pollution levels, the root system almost lost and, at maturity, plants yield are much reduced 9–11 . Wastewater from industries also destroys our productive land by adding chemical compounds to these soils. Delayed germination and earlier leaf senescence are the two most important parameters which correspond to the final yield loss at the end of the season 12,13 . The phyto- remediation can be applied for municipal wastewater treat- ment 14–16 . In the present study, an attempt has made to investigate the effect of Shobhapur (Meerut) tannery effluent in various dilution on seed germination and seed growth of important cultivated crops species. Also, the investigation is carried out for the accumulation of metals in the above crops spe- cies when germinated with tannery effluent. The essential