Photo: Barlow in Plachimada, 2004.
Bloomberg reports that farmers are fighting a Coca-Cola bottling plant in Mehdiganj in the state of Uttar Pradesh in northern India.
“In Mehdiganj, about 20 kilometers from the holy city of Varanasi, 28-year-old farmer Sabita Rai said she used to extract water with buckets attached to ropes only as long as her arm. Then the wells dried up. …Her sister-in-law, 45-year-old Rajpatti Rai, said she’s traveled to cities including Mumbai and New Delhi and smashed cola bottles on roads to protest against the depletion of groundwater in the village. …In Mehdiganj, 35-year-old Urmila Vishwakarma said she takes water from 240 feet down versus 65 feet in prior years. ‘Our biggest battle is for water’, she said. ‘Our situation has become critical.'”
In March 2013, the India Resource Centre highlighted, “Coca-Cola’s bottling plant, which has been in operation since 1999, has severely damaged the groundwater resources in the area – both through over-exploitation as well as pollution of groundwater and the soil. …The community in and around Mehdiganj also rely on the same groundwater – a common resource – to meet all their water needs, including drinking, cooking, cleaning, providing water for livestock, as well as agriculture – the primary activity and occupation in the area.”
“The groundwater resource in Mehdiganj cannot meet the needs of both the community and the Coca-Cola’s bottling plant [but] Coca-Cola’s response has been outright denial that it has anything to do with the sharp fall in groundwater levels and pollution in Mehdiganj.”
“One of Coca-Cola’s largest bottling plants in India, in Plachimada in the state of Kerala, has been shut down since March 2004 because Coca-Cola is unable to obtain a clearance from the state pollution authorities which had ordered the Coca-Cola plant to ‘stop production’ due to the presence of heavy metals such as lead, cadmium and chromium. In 2011, the state legislature of Kerala passed a law seeking at least US$ 47 million in damages caused by Coca-Cola’s operations in the area.”
Blue Planet Project founder Maude Barlow visited Plachimada in 2004.
At that time, she wrote, “The Plachimada project is located on 38 acres of former rice paddies and extracts up to 1.5 million litres of water every day to be made into Coke, Fanta, Sprite, Thumbs Up, and other products. …Within a year after the plant opened, local water sources started to dry up, putting hundreds of farm families out of business. …As well, the soil, water and air around the plant have become contaminated from the sludge by-product, which includes cadmium and other trace metals. What is left of the water is not fit for bathing or cooking, so high are the chlorides from wastewater pumping from the plant.”
A February 2011 article Business Standard reports, “The plant was closed after a prolonged agitation by area residents, making global news.” That “agitation” was led by local women staging a daily sit-in directly across from the Coke plant for more than four years.
Barlow joined that protest in 2004.
She writes, “I sat with the women protesters for several hours, sharing stories of grandchildren (through an interpreter) and even borrowing some for much-needed hugs. …We were invited in to the Coke plant, where we met with officials who assured us that there was plenty of water in the region and the farmers’ dried up wells had nothing to do with them. We emerged from the plant to a bank of television cameras and denounced the company in no uncertain terms.”
The Bloomberg article this week adds, “Coca-Cola said it plans to find a new Uttar Pradesh site for the planned 600 bottle-a-minute plant while continuing to run its 15-year-old returnable glass bottle line at Mehdiganj.” This despite the Financial Times reporting in June that, “Authorities withdrew consent [on June 6] for the Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages plant in the state of Uttar Pradesh, where ground-water levels have been critical for more than a decade, according to the government. …The move to close the bottling plant came as Coke sought permission to expand the facility.” That’s because Coca-Cola appealed the decision made by the local pollution control board. On June 20, the National Green Tribunal stayed the decision of the board.
