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Coca-Cola still faces pollution disputes in India
Published: 24 April, 2010, 06:27
Edited: 06 July, 2010, 11:49
Six years after Coca-Cola’s bottling plant shut down in India’s southern state of Kerala, the company continues to face allegations claiming it caused the depletion of groundwater and polluted the water resources.
“Before, the food we cooked used to stay for 7 days. But after this plant came, the water became so bad that the food would spoil in a few hours,” says Tangammai, a farm labourer in Kerala’s village of Plachimada where the plant operated.
Crops were also affected, says local farmer Murugan. He grows coconuts just outside the plant’s perimeter and says the trees recovered only after the plant closed.
“The sludge that came out of the plant used to contaminate the rainwater and flood this area,” recalls Murugan. “As a result, the crop yield was reduced and the coconuts used to fall off without ripening. This continued for two years after the plant closed. Things got better after that, and now, you can see, the trees are healthier.”
A recent report by the government-appointed committee in Kerala confirmed that Coca-Cola had caused severe damage to the ecology of Plachimada by over-exploiting the water resources and causing severe water shortage in the area.
Yet Coca-Cola maintains that these charges are false and that, in fact, the company is the one that has been victimized by the political “tug of war” with state elections expected next year.
“There have been many committees, many experts, many reports – in fact – some sponsored by the Kerala government itself, which have come out and said that we have no connection with the local water issues,” says Kamlesh Kumar Sharma, Senior manager of Public Affairs at Coca-Cola in India.
Indeed, there are scientific studies which support the company’s position. In 2003 and 2007 the Central Groundwater Board concluded that the plant was not depleting groundwater. In 2008, the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology Delhi found chemicals like zinc and boron present in water samples around Plachimada, but experts at the Institute say these could not have come from the plant.
“We found that the source areas are away from the plant site,” says Professor A.K. Ghosain, an expert at the Institute. “So the only possibility is that these sources can be in the form of some dump. There is no possibility of something coming from the plant site and moving in that direction.”
Yet this has no effect on the protestors at Plachimada, who are set to continue their campaign against Coca-Cola.
“We will continue our agitation till our demands are met, beginning with the formal closing of the plant, plus compensating the victims and prosecuting the Coca-Cola company,” says Vilayodi Venugopal from the Anti-Coca-Cola Agitation Committee. “We also demand that laws are brought in to ensure that the local government has ultimate control over local resources.”
23.04.2010, 20:11
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I live in a residential subdivision just a wall away from the Coca-cola bottling plant. Most often we smell a very bad odor coming from the industrial plant. In our house, I noticed that almost all of us suffer from headache, cough and sticky phlegm very often. I would like to seek assistance on what kind of pollutants are commonly found, and how bad it is for the people living in that area, specially if their waste management disposal is not being monitored properly by the implementing government institutions. I know full well that these giant corporations are difficult to deal with, that is why I need people, group to help us solve the problem of pollution in our residential subdivision and nearby residential houses. Thank you!
Hello Rene
I'm very sad and sorry to hear, a racist corporation like Coca Cola has polluted your village.
There are some advice I can give you. You have to tell people, to stop drinking those evil-Western carbonated drinks (Coca Cola, Pepsi, and other Carbonated drinks), because they can cause obesity (make people fat and unhealthy).
Find an alternative source of pure clean, flouride-free and drinkable water. Just drink water from a bottle. It is very sad to learn, the farmers cannot grow any crops, feed themselves and also cannot become self-sufficient, as they used to be, more than 15-years ago.
You have to understand there are sick and evil inhumane people who contol governments and royalty, that run and rule this planet and they do not like people in poor countries like India to be self-sufficient and self-reliant. They want countries like India to be dependent on their Imperialist western master. They want India to be dependent on Foreign Aid and to have your countrys economy in debt and they want to take India natural resources away from your country.
Please educate yourself and share information with your friends and family, before it is too late. India like other countries near and far, rich and poor, are being murdered in many and various different ways. Without trying to frighten you, the evil powers that rule this planet, want to reduce the global population of the world by 80 to 90%. India is the second largest populated country in the world, behind China.
The only other option for those families who live near the Coca Cola plant, is to be moved away to another location, where you can grow crops and sell them to feed families.
Indians have to learn how to solve their own problems, but not expect outsiders to help them.
Corporations are an incurable cancerous tumor, not only to India, but to the whole world. Corporations do not care about ordinary people like you and me.
But remember one thing - your own government in New Delhi, is not a genuine government. It is a fake/puppet/dummy government, like all the governments in every country. They are all controlled by an evil master and they follow the orders. Don't forget, Manmohan Singh might be your country's Prime Minister, but he is just on show in public, but in private, he is just following orders.