§1What this business is
Wet blue is hide that has just been chrome-tanned: it is leather, still wet and blue, not yet dyed or finished. It can be stored and transported, and finishing units sort it by grain quality and decide whether to make nubuck, aniline, zug-grain, printed or lining leather. Wet-salted hides are soaked, limed with lime and sodium sulphide to loosen the hair, unhaired and fleshed, delimed, bated and pickled, then tanned in wooden drums with 8–10% basic chromium sulphate and basified with sodium bicarbonate to pH 3.8–3.9. The hides are piled for 2–3 days and sold. This unit stops there — it has no dyeing or finishing section. Tanning is highly polluting, so the DPR says such a unit should be set up only where effluent treatment and disposal are available.
Capacity: 5,000 hides a month on one shift — 60,000 wet-blue hides (15,00,000 sq ft at 25 sq ft a hide) a year, worth ₹9.75 crore at ₹1,625 a hide; 70% in year 1, 85% in year 2, 100% after that.
§2Is it right for you?
Who it is for
A trained leather technologist or tanner's family with a plot in a leather cluster served by a common effluent treatment plant.
Who it is not for
Anyone outside an approved tannery zone, or without the money to hold three months of hides.
Advantages
- Simple plant — paddles, a fleshing machine and tanning drums worth about ₹44 lakh
- Wet blue keeps well and can be sent to finishers in other cities
- Finishing tanneries and leather clusters buy it all year
- No dyeing or finishing skills or machines are needed
Drawbacks
- One of the most polluting industries; allowed only where effluent treatment exists
- Thin margin — 6.71% on sales in the DPR
- Raw hides take about 83% of monthly cost
- Needs 30 lakh litres of water a month
Skills you need
- Judging and buying raw hides
- Beam-house work — soaking, liming, fleshing, deliming
- Chrome tanning and pH control
- Effluent and chrome-sludge handling
Why difficulty 5/5: Heavy pollution rules, large working capital and a thin margin.
§3Market
Who buys
- Leather dyeing and finishing units
- Finished-leather tanneries making shoe-upper, garment and goods leather
- Leather traders in tannery clusters
How it sells
- Direct sale to finishing tanneries in clusters such as Kanpur–Unnao, Ranipet–Ambur, Kolkata and Jalandhar
- Sale through leather merchants and agents
Good to know
- The DPR lists existing tannery clusters in Tamil Nadu (Ambur, Ranipet, Vaniyambadi, Dindigul, Erode and others), Uttar Pradesh (Jajmau, Unnao), West Bengal (Calcutta Leather Complex) and Punjab (Jalandhar, Phillaur).
- Monthly utilities in the DPR include ₹10,000 as common effluent treatment plant charges.
- CLRI's waterless chrome tanning technology is suggested as the modern process; the governing standard named is IS 578.
§4Raw material & machinery
| Item | Qty | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Wooden paddle with 7.5 HP motor and starter, vat size 8 ft × 7 ft | 2 | ₹6,00,000 |
| Fleshing machine, 1,800 mm, with 15 HP motor and starter | 1 | ₹6,00,000 |
| Wooden tanning drums, 8 ft × 8 ft, with 10 HP motor and starter | 4 | ₹14,00,000 |
| Experimental drum with 5 HP motor and starter | 1 | ₹1,50,000 |
| Platform weighing balance | 1 | ₹1,50,000 |
| Generator, 25 kW | 1 | ₹4,50,000 |
| Trolleys, tools and equipment | — | ₹2,00,000 |
| Boring, pump and overhead tank (listed under building) | — | ₹4,00,000 |
From: DC-MSME import-substitution DPR — Chrome Tanned Leather (2021)
- Wet-salted hides5,000 a month at ₹1,200 each (₹60,00,000). The DPR calls them cow hides in one place and buff (buffalo) hides in another.
- Tanning chemicals — basic chromium sulphate, lime, sodium sulphide, ammonium salts, salt, acid, sodium bicarbonate₹6 a sq ft on 1,25,000 sq ft a month (₹7,50,000)
From: DC-MSME import-substitution DPR — Chrome Tanned Leather (2021)
§5Licences & registration
- Udyam registration
- GST registration
- Factory licence
- State Pollution Control Board consent to establish and to operate (the DPR calls pollution clearance mandatory)
- Membership of a common effluent treatment plant, or your own ETP
- Hazardous waste authorisation for chrome-bearing sludge
Start it in your state
Pick your state: today’s cost, central + state subsidy, raw material, land and help, on one page.
§6Schemes & subsidies
At ₹3.22 crore the project is above PMEGP's ₹50 lakh ceiling; the DPR itself points to CGTMSE, which covers loans up to ₹10 crore without collateral. Margin money is taken as at least 25%.
§7Money
How the investment is worked out: Fixed capital ₹1,04,25,000 (land and building ₹58,00,000 — 1 acre of land ₹15 lakh, 1,000 sq ft office ₹15 lakh, 8,000 sq ft shed ₹24 lakh, boring, pump and overhead tank ₹4 lakh; machines and equipment ₹44,25,000; pre-operative expenses ₹2,00,000) + three months' working capital ₹2,17,71,000 = ₹3,21,96,000. No cost is included for an effluent treatment plant; a common ETP is recommended.
Working capital: Recurring cost is ₹72,57,000 a month, of which hides and chemicals are ₹67,50,000; three months (₹2,17,71,000) are provided — twice the fixed capital.
Prices from April 2021 — hide, chemical and machinery prices will be different now.
§8Export potential
Confirm the HS code in the DGFT ITC(HS) lookup before you export
Export council / board: Council for Leather Exports
- Imports under this code as printed in the DPR: ₹215.71 crore in 2017-18, ₹199.86 crore in 2018-19 and ₹183.75 crore in 2019-20; exports were under ₹2 crore a year.
- Check the current export policy and duty for wet-blue leather with DGFT before planning any export.
§9Risks — where people fail
- Closure orders for breaking pollution norms
- Raw hide price and supply swings
- Hides spoiling if soaking or tanning goes wrong
- Finishers delaying payment
§1030 / 60 / 90-day plan
A general plan that applies to any business. A plan for this business will be added after research.
- Days 1–30: Visit a working wet blue (chrome-tanned) leather tannery unit, ask 10 buyers about price and quantity, and get quotations from 3 suppliers.
- Days 31–60: Udyam and the licences you need (Udyam registration, GST registration), a project report (DPR), and the scheme or loan file.
- Days 61–90: Space and machines, trial production, and first deliveries to 10 customers.
§11Who to connect with
§12Watch
There is no episode on this business yet. Shows are coming soon on the Podcast page.
Want to start Wet Blue (Chrome-Tanned) Leather Tannery?
DPR, loan file or registration — ask us on WhatsApp.
¶Sources
Data review: 6 October 2026. Spotted a mistake? Report it. For information only — not legal or financial advice.