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Water wars: Plachimada vs Coca-Cola

Updated - July 15, 2017 04:49 pm IST

A plaque erected in front of the Coca Cola company at Plachimada near Palakkad.

The protracted legal battle between the tribals of Plachimada and the beverage behemoth, Coca-Cola drew to a close on Thursday as the latter made a submission before the Supreme Court that it had no intention of restarting operations at its contentious facility in central Kerala. Here is all you need to know about the long drawn out dispute:

Where is Plachimada?

Plachimada is a sparsely populated tribal hamlet in Perumatty panchayat in Palakkad district. Data from the latest round of the socio-economic census reveals that 60% of the population is engaged in agriculture. This corresponds to 2,303 of the 3,802 people who are of working-age in Perumatty, highlighting the importance of agriculture to the local community.

When did Coca-Cola set up shop in Plachimada?

The Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt. Ltd, the Indian subsidiary of the Atlanta-based manufacturer of aerated drinks, erected its factory in a 38-acre plot in Plachimada in 1999. The plant is situated in the midst of agricultural land, which has historically belonged to the Adivasis.

Palakkad is also known as the rice bowl of Kerala. In its halcyon days, before the company's relationship with the locals soured, the facility employed 284 people. Audits reveal that around 600 cases comprising of 24 bottles of 300ml capacity each, were produced every day.

What went wrong?

As per the agreement struck by the company with the KSPCB, up to 1.5 million litres of water was drawn commercially from 6 bore-wells situated inside the factory compound. The permit granted Coca-Cola the right to extract ground water to meet its production demands of 3.8 litres of water for a litre of cola.

As a result, the water table receded, as did the quality of groundwater. Detailed sampling of the water collected from the region revealed high concentration of calcium, and magnesium ions.

Moreover, the colloidal slurry that was generated as a by-product was initially sold to villagers as fertilizer.

In 2003, the BBC, in its Face The Facts programme, declared that samples of slurry that was being deployed as fertilizer were found to contain dangerous levels of toxic metals and the known carcinogen, cadmium.

"The area's farming industry has been devastated and jobs, as well as the health of the local people, have been put at risk," said John Waite, the show's presenter, as he read out the verdict of scientists from the University of Exeter, where samples collected from Plachimada were sent for analysis.

Water quality in districts of Kerala

In a white paper titled Spatial Assessment of Groundwater Quality in Kerala , researchers from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore infer that Palakkad's groundwater fares badly on most counts, having a large number of dissolved minerals, above the desirable limit.

Plachimada has been mentioned for failing to meet the quality norms on salinity, alkalinity, and high traces of magnesium, and chloride, among other minerals.

Popular protest

Public anger led to the mobilisation of villagers who formed the ‘Coca-Cola Virudha Janakeeya Samara Samithy,’ a body fighting for the closure of the polluting soda factory, in April, 2002. For a year, awareness camps and torchlight vigils were organised, resulting in several villagers picketing the factory. The cola giant slapped charges against the leaders of the rebellion.

Federalism and the law

The Perumatty panchayat took matters into its own hands by refusing to renew Coca-Cola's license on account of the exploitation of natural resources that had deleterious effects on public health, as well as agricultural yield. The company challenged this order in the Kerala High Court, which directed the litigants to approach the government's Local Self-Government Department (LSD). The LSD overruled the panchayat's order banning the license.

Following the BBC report, the government was forced to sit up and take notice. The KSPCB conducted tests which corroborated the findings of the Exeter researchers.

Still from the documentary "1000 Days and A Dream" on the anti-cola struggle at Plachimada. Photo: Spl 28/10/06.

The panchayat again approached the High Court, which observed this time around that “groundwater was a public property held in trust by a government and that it had no right to allow a private party to overexploit the resource to the detriment of the people.” However, the LSD refused to relent from its earlier position on legal grounds. The company was allowed to continue operation as long as it found alternative sources of water supply.

Things came to a head when the Supreme Court, in 2005, issued a notice to the company allowing it to draw 5,00,000 litres of groundwater per day.

In the intervening years, members of the Coca-Cola Virudha Janakeeya Samara Samithy, as well as the village committee held held awareness programmes to draw public attention to their struggle for corporate accountability. The factory had been in lock-down since 2004, with the legal stalemate ensuring that future of the company’s operations in Plachimada remained uncertain.

The 12-year-old case finally reached closure after much wrangling, when Coca-Cola relinquished its license, stating in the SC that it did not intend to resume production from Plachimada.

Published - July 15, 2017 03:45 pm IST

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The Hindu Explains / Kerala / environmental issues / environmental pollution / Environmental disasters / water pollution / Palakkad

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A timeline of the historic Plachimada agitation, from Keraleeyam Magazine

7th March 2018

When in July 2017, Coca-Cola informed India’s Supreme Court that it won’t restart its bottling plant in Plachimada, Kerala, it brought to a close a decade-long agitation spearheaded by the local community comprising mostly dalits and adivasis. This historic struggle has now been comprehensively documented in a digital project by Neethu Das of Keraleeyam Magazine.

Water wars: Plachimada vs Coca-Cola

The protracted legal battle between the tribals of Plachimada and the  beverage  behemoth, Coca-Cola drew to a close on Thursday as the latter made a submission before the Supreme Court that it had no intention of restarting operations at its contentious facility in central Kerala. Here is all you need to know about the long drawn out dispute:

Where is Plachimada?

Plachimada is a sparsely populated tribal hamlet in Perumatty panchayat in  Palakkad  district. Data from the latest round of the socio-economic census reveals that 60% of the population is engaged in agriculture. This corresponds to 2,303 of the 3,802 people who are of working-age in Perumatty, highlighting the importance of agriculture to the local community.

When did Coca-Cola set up shop in Plachimada?

The Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt. Ltd, the Indian subsidiary of the Atlanta-based manufacturer of aerated drinks, erected its factory in a 38-acre plot in Plachimada in 1999. The plant is situated in the midst of agricultural land, which has historically belonged to the Adivasis.

Palakkad is also known as the rice bowl of  Kerala.  In its halcyon days, before the company’s relationship with the locals soured, the facility employed 284 people. Audits reveal that around 600 cases comprising of 24 bottles of 300ml capacity each, were produced every day.

What went wrong?

As per the agreement struck by the company with the KSPCB, up to 1.5 million litres of water was drawn commercially from 6 bore-wells situated inside the factory compound. The permit granted Coca-Cola the right to extract ground water to meet its production demands of 3.8 litres of water for a litre of cola.

As a result, the water table receded, as did the quality of groundwater. Detailed sampling of the water collected from the region revealed high concentration of calcium, and magnesium ions.

Moreover, the colloidal slurry that was generated as a by-product was initially sold to villagers as fertilizer.

In 2003, the BBC, in its Face The Facts programme, declared that samples of slurry that was being deployed as fertilizer were found to contain dangerous levels of toxic metals and the known carcinogen, cadmium.

“The area’s farming industry has been devastated and jobs, as well as the health of the local people, have been put at risk,” said John Waite, the show’s presenter, as he read out the verdict of scientists from the University of Exeter, where samples collected from Plachimada were sent for analysis.

Water quality in districts of Kerala

In a white paper titled  Spatial Assessment of Groundwater Quality in Kerala , researchers from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore infer that Palakkad’s groundwater fares badly on most counts, having a large number of dissolved minerals, above the desirable limit.

Plachimada has been mentioned for failing to meet the quality norms on salinity, alkalinity, and high traces of magnesium, and chloride, among other minerals.

Popular protest

Public anger led to the mobilisation of villagers who formed the ‘Coca-Cola Virudha Janakeeya Samara Samithy,’ a body fighting for the closure of the polluting soda factory, in April, 2002. For a year, awareness camps and torchlight vigils were organised, resulting in several villagers picketing the factory. The cola giant slapped charges against the leaders of the rebellion.

Federalism and the law

The Perumatty panchayat took matters into its own hands by refusing to renew Coca-Cola’s license on account of the exploitation of natural resources that had deleterious effects on public health, as well as agricultural yield. The company challenged this order in the Kerala High Court, which directed the litigants to approach the government’s Local Self-Government Department (LSD). The LSD overruled the panchayat’s order banning the license.

Following the BBC report, the government was forced to sit up and take notice. The KSPCB conducted tests which corroborated the findings of the Exeter researchers.

The panchayat again approached the High Court, which observed this time around that “groundwater was a public property held in trust by a government and that it had no right to allow a private party to overexploit the resource to the detriment of the people.” However, the LSD refused to relent from its earlier position on legal grounds. The company was allowed to continue operation as long as it found alternative sources of water supply.

Things came to a head when the Supreme Court, in 2005, issued a notice to the company allowing it to draw 5,00,000 litres of groundwater per day.

In the intervening years, members of the Coca-Cola Virudha Janakeeya Samara Samithy, as well as the village committee held held awareness programmes to draw public attention to their struggle for corporate accountability. The factory had been in lock-down since 2004, with the legal stalemate ensuring that future of the company’s operations in Plachimada remained uncertain.

The 12-year-old case finally reached closure after much wrangling, when Coca-Cola relinquished its license, stating in the SC that it did not intend to resume production from Plachimada.

VIEW/DOWNLOAD Plachimada Struggle: Over the Years (PDF) A comprehensive timeline of the Plachimada agitation, with links to important records and documents Compiled by Neethu Das, Keraleeyam Magazine

RELATED Obituary: Veloor Swaminathan, who led a legendary fight against Coca Cola that’s finding new resonance K.P. Sasi Swaminathan along with Mylamma were the initial foundations of the historic struggle at Plachimada, Kerala. The struggle initiated by a small group of these Adivasis with Dalits and farmers forced one of the largest corporate powers in the world to back down and quit Plachimada. Swaminathan passed away on March 14, 2015.

A Look at the Legal Issues Plachimada’s Struggle for Water Against Coca-Cola Has Brought Up Gayatri Raghunandan, The Wire Several important issues were at stake in this tug of war – the idea of public access to common resources like air or water, the limits of the decision-making powers of local self-governing bodies like panchayats, and the acceptance of the polluter pays principle (PPP). However, these issues could not be tested in law in the Supreme Court. It is all the more important to look closely at the important issues that this case has thrown up, namely the importance of the public trust doctrine, the role of local self governing bodies in decision making, and the relevance of the PPP.

Why the Coke-Pepsi boycott in Tamil Nadu is a good thing Nityanand Jayaraman, The News  Minute Nityanand Jayaraman writes: Coke and Pepsi are the best-known agents of commodification of water. It’s unethical and immoral for a resource that is so vital to life to be commodified. So, every nail in the coffins of companies involved in selling water –like Coke, Pepsi, Nestle, Tata and so on– is a nail well driven.

Here’s why bottled water is one of the biggest scams of the century Business Insider Some of us get our water for free from the tap. The rest pay for it – at the cost of roughly $US100 billion a year. But there are plenty of reasons to stop buying bottled water. Read on to find out all the things you didn’t know about your drinking water.

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6 Feb 2016 Author: KPM Basheer, Hindu

A lost battle: Plachimada’s victims may never get Coke’s compensation

Bringing relief to Coca Cola and turning to nought the long agitation by residents of the Plachimada, a village in Kerala’s Palakkad district, the Plachimada Tribunal Bill has failed to win the President’s assent...The Rashtrapati Bhavan on February 1 returned the Plachimada Coca Cola Victims Relief and Compensation Claims Special Tribunal Bill 2011 – which was unanimously passed by the Kerala Assembly five years ago – to the Ministry of Home Affairs... Hindustan Coca Cola Beverages, the Indian subsidiary of the multinational, has thus been spared of paying compensation to the nearly 1,000 Dalit and Adivasi families from Palakkad’s Perumatty and Pattancherry gram panchayats, the victims of the hazardous effects of its huge bottling plant at Plachimada.

Part of the following timelines

India: 13 years after shut down of bottling plant in kerala, villagers allege they don't have clean drinking water, waiting for justice for effects of pollution, coca-cola statement re compensation, plachimada - still waiting for justice and compensation, high time plachimada bill got presidential consent, coca-cola forced to shut bottling plant in india, coca-cola statement about varanasi plant, indians force coca-cola bottling facility in plachimada to shut down, 2001-2006, plachimada activists vow to keep coca-cola plant shut, coca-cola's response disappoints plachimada activists, coca-cola lawsuit (re india), lawsuits against coca-cola approved in india, [pdf] access to justice: human rights abuses involving corporations [india], plachimada's claims [india], kerala to set up tribunal to get compensation from coke, coca-cola india unit asked to pay $47 million damages, plachimada solidarity committee’s plea to form statutory authority [india], coca-cola plant: committee defends kerala’s authority [india].

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Plachimada vs Coca-Cola: Residents still fight for justice, 15 years after the Coke plant shut down

(This is a video documentary)

“Will future generations be able to live in this place?”

This is what the people and activists of Plachimada worried about in 2002, when they protested against the Coca-Cola plant in their village. Fifteen long years after the Coca-Cola plant that was polluting the ground water in Plachimada was shut down because of people’s protests, the ghosts of Plachimada’s corporate past still haunt the people. 

“Earlier, we used to have good water in our wells. But now, it is contaminated. We are now forced to use pipe water. Despite having water in the wells, we have to pay Rs 100 per month to get this water every alternate day. This is the condition we live in today,” says Thangavelu, a resident and activist of Plachimada.

Seventy-eight-year old Kanniammal still recalls those dark days when she and her family used and drank the polluted water from their well. At the time, they hadn't realised that their corporate neighbour was slowly contaminating their ground water.

“When we saw that the rice is not boiling, we tried cooking for more time. Slowly we started realising that we were unable to cook anything in the water. If we used the water for bathing, we could not see anything for sometime. We felt light headed and dizzy,” she recalls. 

In their fight to save the ground water rescuers of their village, the people of Plachimada have sacrificed jobs, money, well being, time and precious human lives. They say that that Coca-Cola has robbed them of these things over the years. 

However, the company has refused to offer Plachimada’s victims any compensation. In 2011, a bill to compensate the victims of Plachimada with Rs 216 crore was passed by the state government. Yet, this bill did not see the light of day and was killed in 2015 after it failed to receive the President’s assent.

“Reintroducing the Plachimada victim’s compensation bill was an electoral promise of the CPI(M) government. It has been 3 years since they have come to power. They have cheated us and have been passing the buck to different departments,” says Vilayodi Venugopal, an activist who led agitations against the Coke plant back in 2002.

When TNM contacted the Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Ltd (which had set up the plant), they spoke about an unrelated CSR initiative with no mention of compensation to victims. 

“HCCB is seeking to initiate a program on education, livelihood, skill development and healthcare services for the local community in line with its commitment to make a positive impact in the lives of the people surrounding its operations,” the statement read. 

But Plachimada’s people have only one demand: compensation for their losses. 

“If the government cannot get Coca-Cola to compensate us, let the government set aside funds and compensate us. They were responsible for bringing coke here. If they cannot do that, it shows their inefficiency,” Vilayodi added.

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The struggle over water rights in Kerala's Plachimada has been a long drawn out one, continuing since 2002, against the global giant, Coca-Cola, which polluted and depleted the groundwater. Plachimada is in Perumatty Panchayat, one of the six panchayats in Chittoor block of Palakkad district, the rice bowl of Kerala. Kerala's Plachimada struggle carved out a distinctive place for itself among issue-based democratic struggles in India, for taking on Coca-Cola, the most well-known global brand and symbol of imperialism by the United States (US), that too by adivasis — the most marginalized people, in a sustained and persistent manner. Democratization requires a decisive move away from decentralization to a non-centralized people's participatory governance system. The chapter provides a narrative on the struggle and the way the governance structure and system responded, with reference to water and governance rights. It outlines the conflict between the constitutional provisions and statutory laws that govern water and its use.

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Coca Cola on the UN’s Hands as Plachimada Still Waits for Justice

Nakeeyat Dramani Sam holds up a placard at an informal stocktaking session at the COP27 climate summit, Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, November 18, 2022. Photo: Reuters/Mohamed Abd El Ghany

• On November 4, villagers of Plachimada in Kerala wrote to the UN to remove Coca Cola as a sponsor of the COP27 climate talks.
• For more than a decade now, they have been demanding compensation for pollution caused by a Coca Cola bottling plant in Plachimada.
• Coca Cola has refused to pay, but turned the plant into a COVID care facility and sponsored COP27, actions that have drawn accusations of ‘greenwashing’.

Kochi : Representatives from the world’s countries originally had until yesterday to discuss loss and damage caused by the climate crisis at the COP27 climate talks in Egypt.

It is only just, many say, that the economically developed nations pay for their historical carbon emissions, which have contributed greatly to climate change – the consequences of which are now being borne disproportionately by their developing counterparts.

At the same time, thousands of kilometres and an ocean away, a small hamlet in Kerala has a justicial demand of its own, and it is directed at the UN, the talks’ organiser.

The villagers here wrote to UN secretary-general António Guterres to remove Coca Cola as a sponsor of the event.

The story of Plachimada and its people is one of loss, a seemingly unending wait and of justice delayed.

The Plachimada struggle

In 2000, Coca Cola began operating a bottling plant in Plachimada, in the district of Palakkad. It produced several beverages, including Coca Cola, Limca, Fanta, Thums Up and Sprite. The plant also provided jobs to around 400 villagers. But soon, Plachimada began to realise the dire cost they had paid for this benefit.

The village, located in an arid area, was already water-stressed. The plant drew water from underground aquifers and the water table fell further. Plachimada’s women had to travel longer distances to fetch drinking water.

The locals also complained that sludge from the factory – which the factory operators were distributing as free fertiliser to the villagers, most of whom were farmers – was contaminating land and water resources. The villagers, half of them Adivasis and Dalits, began protesting against the plant in 2002 under the banner of ‘Coca Cola Virudha Janakeeya Samara Samithy’, or the ‘Anti-Coca Cola Struggle Committee’.

In 2003, a BBC journalist who came to report on the issue took some samples of the sludge with him back to the UK. “Analysis of the black sludge-like material, conducted at the University of Exeter, reveals that not only was it useless as a fertiliser but it contained a number of toxic metals, including cadmium and lead,” a BBC press release in July 2003 read.

British scientists said that the concentration of toxins in these samples would cause serious problems, such as “polluting the land, local water supplies and the food chain”. Lead and cadmium are also toxic to humans in high concentrations and can cause liver and kidney failure.

Even the little water that remained in the wells and the ponds after Coca Cola took its share – 0.8-1.5 million litres a day, per one estimate – wasn’t fit for consumption. In fact, more tests revealed that the water was utterly unfit for drinking (it was highly acidic) nor could it be used for cooking, washing or farming, C.R. Bijoy wrote in the Economic and Political Weekly in 2006.

Show-cause notices, denials of clearances and licences, and legal battles ensued. Protestors, including many women, stood their ground: the bottling plant had to close down. They had a groundswell of public support on their side.

The bottling plant finally ceased operations in 2004-2005. The government imposed severe restrictions on water use, and Coca Cola considered moving its factory after compensating the villagers, according to Bijoy. The plant remains closed to this day.

Polluter doesn’t pay

It was a victory – but not a clean one. While the plant’s environmental pollution and groundwater depletion ceased, Plachimada’s people await, even today, something equally crucial: reparations for what was taken from them.

A 2010 report compiled by a ‘high power committee’ constituted by the Kerala government listed what Coca Cola took from them in detail. The committee consisted of environmental scientists and officials from the agriculture department, the Kerala water authority, the state pollution control board and some other Central and state departments.

The report found that farming households experienced a “drastic decline in crop productivity caused by insufficient irrigation and other factors”. Most farmers had reported a decline in agricultural income. People had to move to other villages in search of work.

The report found a “clear linkage” between the prevalence of diseases – from itching to hairfall and diarrhoea – and pollution due to the bottling plant. The plant’s activities had violated numerous laws, including the Environment (Protection) Act 1984, the Factories Act 1948 and the SC-ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989.

The report recommended that Coca Cola pay a total of Rs 216.26 crore as compensation to the villagers. In this amount, agricultural losses alone accounted for Rs 84 crore while the estimated cost of pollution of water sources was around Rs 62 crore.

Coca Cola is yet to pay a single rupee.

This month, Coca Cola was one of the main sponsors of the COP27 climate talks, conducted under the aegis of the UN and as part of its Framework Convention on Climate Change, where ‘loss and damage’ came to dominate negotiations.

Another hot topic was climate justice – the complicated but necessary road to acknowledging and ‘resolving’ the fact that the climate crisis affects the underprivileged and the vulnerable disproportionately. A recent report by the UN climate science panel emphasised that effective climate policy won’t be possible without climate justice.

‘Greenwashing’

The letter penned by Vilayodi Venugopal and K. Sakthivel, the chairperson and the general convenor of the Plachimada Anti Coca Cola Struggle Committee, to Guterres on November 4 is very clear.

“We request you to remove Coca Cola from the sponsorship of COP27 as they are gross violators of all environmental norms and to restore the integrity of the decisive environmental conference. We also request you to kindly use your good offices to impress upon Coca Cola … their duty to compensate for the damages caused, as per the reference report along with interest at prevailing rates.”

They are yet to hear from the UN, the convenor of the committee, K.V. Biju, confirmed to The Wire Science .

On November 6, the day the COP27 talks began, Plachimada’s residents protested outside the Coca Cola bottling plant. “Remove the top polluter Coca Cola from the sponsoring COP27 global summit on climate crisis @ Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt,” read a red banner they held up.

The Plachimada Anti Coke Struggle Committee protest outside the plant demanding Removal of the top polluter Coca Cola from sponsoring CoP27. pic.twitter.com/70CfgKc1bz — Friends of the Earth India (@FoEIndia) November 6, 2022

That Coca Cola is a sponsor of the COP is a “dangerous direction” for a climate conference to take, ecologist S. Faizi, one of the members of the ‘high power committee’ that assessed the damage wrought by the Coca Cola plant, told The Wire Science .

“This is a shame on global governments,” he said. The COP “is an event of a community of nations and they [governments] have to bear the cost”. “At this rate,” he added, “corporates will come and sit at the negotiating table one day soon.”

Faizi used the term “greenwashing” to describe Coca Cola’s sponsorship.

As countries and companies are expected to do more to combat climate change, they have often responded by making tall promises seldom backed by a strategy to achieve them, policies to shift action in that direction or a meaningful quantum of resources to enable change. These promises are said to be ‘greenwashed’: green in appearance, not in substance.

Faizi said the company tried something similar with the Plachimada bottling plant as well. In 2021, it loaned it to the state government as a COVID-19 treatment centre. The Hindu quoted sources in the government to report that Hindustan Coca Cola Beverages had spent Rs 60 lakh from its CSR funds on the facility.

A request for comment filed via the Coca Cola website and via two members of the group managing Coca Cola’s communications hadn’t elicited a response. This article will be updated as and when The Wire Science receives a reply.

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Polluter didn’t pay: Plachimada awaits compensation from Coca-Cola, 2 decades on

Coca-Cola Co, the multi-American beverages giant with presence across the globe, has been in news for its  sponsorship of the upcoming 27th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Even as it draws flak for littering the world with its bottles and cans, in India, there is another concern: The company is yet to shell out compensate those affected by its Plachimada plant in Kerala.

People from the area told DTE that they wanted the Union government to make sure the company paid the compensation.

The Hindustan Coca Cola Beverages Pvt Ltd (HCBPL), Coca-Cola’s Indian subsidiary, had set up a plant that manufactured soft drinks in Plachimada village of Palakkad district in 2000.

The plant was closed in 2004 following protests by local Adivasi residents who said it had caused the village land to become barren, contaminated its water and violated rules and acts. The plant remained closed till May 2021.

The Plachimada Struggle Solidarity Committee confirmed to DTE that no penalty had been imposed on Coca-Cola till date. Isa bin Abdulkareem, general convenor of the Committee, said:

We demand that the Coca-Cola Company be prosecuted for the extraction and over-exploitation of water in Plachimada. It should pay the compensation amount to Plachimada villagers immediately.

“We have organised a Satyagraha to get compensation from Coca-Cola. The government should take urgent steps to make sure the company provides us the said compensation. Our protest has been going on for 20 years,” Sakthivel, a protester from Plachimada, told DTE .   

Georgekutty Kadaclacka, who had come from Kottayam district to join the Satyagraha October 8 said: “What the company did to the people of Plachimada cannot be reversed. However, the  compensation should not be denied anymore.”  

Why no compensation?

The Kerala Assembly  had unanimously passed the Plachimada Coca-Cola Victims’ Relief and Compensation Claims Special Tribunal Bill February 24, 2011. This step was taken to adjudicate disputes relating to compensation of Rs 216.25 crore.

That amount was to be paid by the company for over-exploitation of groundwater, toxic contamination of soil, groundwater and water bodies, loss of agriculture and causing health problems in Plachimada.

HCCB is said to have violated the following Acts because of its actions sat Plachimada:

• Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974
• The Environment (Protection) Act, 1986
• The Factories Act, 1948
• Hazardous Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 1989
• The SC-ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989
• Indian Penal Code
• Land Utilization Order, 1967
• The Kerala Ground Water (Control & Regulation) Act, 2002 Indian Easement Act, 1882
• Indian Easement Act, 1882

The Bill sought the establishment of a tribunal to try all disputes for compensation and secure it from Coca Cola company. But it  never saw the light of day.

The state governor had reserved the Bill for Presidential consideration in 2011. In March of the same year, it was forwarded to the Government of India and remained with the Union Ministry of Home Affairs for months.

The Centre  had then argued that environmental compensations came under the purview of the NGT and a state government did not have powers to form a separate tribunal to deal with them.

In November 2015, the governor of Kerala was informed that the then-President Pranab Mukherjee “had been  pleased to withhold his assent from the Bill”.

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People Power Shut Coke Down In Plachimada, But Wells Are Still Dry

PLACHIMADA, Kerala —Kanniammal, now in her 70s, becomes nostalgic when asked what life was like in her village Plachimada three decades ago. There were no bore wells then and every family had more than enough water for its needs. Even during the peak of summer, the village used its water resources with care.

Things changed in 1999 when Coca-Cola zeroed in on the quiet village as the location for its massive bottling unit. From the following year, as it began extracting groundwater from the area, Plachimada’s water table fell drastically and toxic waste discharged from the plant smothered the soil.

As residents took to the streets to get the MNC off their land, their struggles soon received global attention. The factory was finally closed in 2004, a victory chalked up to the power of an organic, people-led protest.

The first week of February will mark 15 years since the Coca-Cola bottling plant was permanently closed. But Plachimada and its surrounding areas are yet to recover from its excesses.

Now, Kanniammal treks about nine km a day through difficult terrains to fetch a pot of drinking water for her family of five.

“With every passing year, water scarcity has become acute and our livelihoods are in peril,’’ says Kanniammal, who hails from the Ervala tribal community.

Many of the protesters are losing hope, but some still fight on to make the company pay for the damage it caused and to force the government to keep a poll promise it made.

The Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt. Ltd, an Indian subsidiary of the Atlanta-based manufacturer of aerated drinks, set up its factory in a 38-acre plot in Plachimada in 1999. The plant was built on agricultural land which historically belonged to the Eravala tribals.

The company would draw up to 1.5 million litres of water daily from 6 bore-wells situated inside the factory compound, as permitted by the Kerala State Pollution Control Board . Reports say, however, that the plant was drawing up to 2 million litres per day in 2000.

The local agitation caught global attention in 2003, when a BBC show Face The Facts quoted research from University of Exeter that showed slurry from the plant contained dangerous levels of toxic metals such as cadmium and lead . The waste byproduct was being sold to farmers as fertiliser.

“The area’s farming industry has been devastated and jobs, as well as the health of the local people, have been put at risk,” said John Waite, the show’s presenter, as he read out findings by the university’s scientists.

Lost battle?

A little away from the closed entrance of the imposing bottling unit stands a dilapidated thatched structure. This was the office from where the Plachimada struggle committee operated for many years. Rights activists Maude Barlow, José Bové and Finland’s former minister Satu Hassi were among those who addressed protestors at the venue during the World Water Conference hosted by the village in 2004.

“It was, in fact, a lost battle. The world noticed us when the mighty Coca-Cola decided to close down the unit in the face of our stringent agitation. But successive governments at the state and the centre have created a situation in which none of us would get any compensation from those who plundered our water resources. The governments and political parties seem lethargic about our grievances,’’ says Vilayodi Venugopal, an agricultural worker who became the public face of the agitation.

The village, he says, has been fighting against the company’s water exploitation and its effects for 19 years now, but the living standards of people have not changed.

“Despite the earlier promise to reintroduce the Plachimada Coca-Cola Victims Relief and Compensation Claims Special Tribunal Bill in the Kerala state Assembly, the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government is maintaining a studied silence on our survival-related issues. Those who were once eloquent about our miseries are now doing nothing,” says Venugopal, who is also chairman of the Plachimada Anti Coca-Cola Struggle Committee.

The bill, which was passed unanimously by the Kerala Assembly in 2011, was returned by the President five years later . The Union Home Ministry had objected to the bill , claiming it was in conflict with centre-state relations. It cited some provisions of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) Act to back its case.

During its poll campaign in 2016, the LDF had promised it would reintroduce the Bill after removing these conflicts so it wouldn’t need the President’s nod.

The bill had accused the company of alarmingly depleting groundwater, apart from exploiting and wilfully polluting other natural resources of the village.

It also promised to establish a special tribunal for speedy adjudication of disputes and recovery of compensation for the predominantly poor, landless people of Plachimada.

While an expert committee set up by the state government has fixed the compensation amount at Rs 216 crore, the company has not paid anything so far.

Coca-Cola India has responded to the report, which is reproduced below. In 2017, the Supreme Court recorded a submission by the company that it did not intend to reopen the factory. It also told the court that it had not ruined Plachimada’s water resources and that the Kerala government’s actions were “misleading”.

“It is true that the factory remains closed since February 2004. But the alarming groundwater depletion caused by it continues to haunt us. Before the bottling plant was opened at Plachimada, we were fully dependent on our wells, streams and rivulets,” says Arumughan Pathichira, a local resident.

There are about 2,000 residents in the predominantly tribal Plachimada village of Perumatty gram panchayat and their main occupations are agriculture and farm labour.

“Apart from making available Rs 216 crore in terms of compensation from Coca-Cola for crippling life at Perumatty, the Bill had provisions for initiating action against the company for draining groundwater. It also had provisions to prosecute the company’s top executives under the law on prevention of atrocities against Dalits and tribal people. But all major political fronts failed us,” says local tribal activist Neelippara Mariyappan.

Even today, Venugopal says, water in the wells in Plachimada and surrounding villages tastes sour.

Political apathy

The protesters say both major political fronts in Kerala—the LDF and the UDF—have not paid heed to their demands to re-enact the bill.

“The state assembly had passed the Bill unanimously when V.S. Achuthanandan was chief minister after obtaining the opinion of legal experts that the Bill was as per the rights of the state. Many legal luminaries were of the opinion that there was no need to obtain the President’s assent and the state governor could promulgate it. But the then law minister and CPI(M) leader M. Vijayakumar had sent the Bill to the Union Home Ministry for obtaining the President’s assent without taking his Cabinet colleagues or experts into confidence,” alleged S. Faizi, a technical member of the Plachimada high-power committee formed by the state government to look into the damage caused by the company

“It is high time that the government and opposition parties in Kerala reintroduced the same bill after deleting controversial portions, if any,” he added.

Vijayakumar told HuffPost India that he had forwarded the bill as per normal procedure, and that there were no hidden motives behind this.

Faizi termed as unrealistic the Union Home Ministry’s observation that the Bill was in conflict with the NGT Act. The NGT, he said, could accept petitions for compensation in cases only up to five-and-a-half years before its inception.

“The NGT became operational only in May 2011. The groundwater exploitation and toxic contamination caused by the company at Plachimada occurred during 2000-2004,” he says.

“The NDA government at the centre cheated us by succumbing to pressures from the multi-national giant and forcing the president to return the bill. Both the LDF and the UDF in the state have not responded to our demand to re-enact the legislation without requiring the President’s assent,” says Vijayan Ambalakkad, a leader of the struggle committee.

Faizi says the Plachimada struggle raises important questions regarding the ownership of groundwater and other natural resources.

“The company was established disregarding objections from the local panchayat. Its warnings were often violated and overruled. The water resources of an agrarian society were diverted for industrial use. Now are the governments protecting the polluter from paying?’’ he asked.

Coca-Cola India’s response:

Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt. Ltd. (HCCB) plant at Plachimada in Palakkad District of Kerala was set up with all valid permissions from various State authorities in March 2000. In 2003, the local Panchayat cancelled HCCB’s license of the Plant on grounds of scarcity of water in public interest. HCCB challenged this order and in 2005, the Hon’ble High Court of Kerala held that the cancellation of HCCB’s license by the Panchayat was unjustified and found no basis to the allegation of scarcity of water being attributable to ground water extraction by HCCB. It also held that HCCB was entitled to draw ground water under normal rainfall conditions, with direction to Panchayat to renew the license. However, in March 2004, the Company halted operations at the Plant, of its own volition.

In spite of halting operations, the Plant continued to distribute drinking water to surrounding villages for more than 2 years after it discontinued operations. The plant distributed over 60,000 litres of purified drinking water free of cost every day through dedicated tankers to villages within the Perumatty Panchayat.

Several independent scientific studies, carried out over more than a decade, have not substantiated any of the allegations made against the Plant operations at Kerala.

In fact, in response to a question raised in Session number 210 in the Rajya Sabha, the then Minister for Water Resources on February 27, 2007 laid a Statement on the table of the House. The relevant portion of the Statement is reproduced for reference:

“Decline in ground water levels in an area is cumulative effect of ground water withdrawal for all purposes including domestic, industrial as well as agricultural sectors. CGWB monitors ground water levels on a regional basis and carries out assessment studies at watershed/block levels. However, a special study was carried out by CGWB in Plachimada village, Chittoor Block, Palakkad district in Kerala, where soft drink manufacturing factories are located. The main finding of the study is that agricultural pumpage is contributing the maximum for decline of ground water.”

With respect to the question on compensation, The President of India had withheld his assent to the Plachimada Coca-Cola Victims Relief and Compensation Claims Special Tribunal Bill 2011 and returned it to the State.

(The story has been updated to include Coca-Cola India’s response.)

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BUSINESS ETHICS: A CASE STUDY ON VIOLATION OF BUSINESS ETHICS BY COCA COLA COMPANY IN PLACHIMADA

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