Coca-Cola must pay compensation for polluting Plachimada: panel
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COMMENTS 
A Kerala government-appointed panel has indicted the Coca-Cola plant in Plachimada village for polluting water and creating water scarcity, and has recommended it pay compensation
A Kerala government panel report has recommended that beverages multinational Coca-Cola pay Rs 216.26 crore as compensation for losses caused to local communities and the environment by its plant in Plachimada village in Kerala’s Palakkad district.
Local communities have for long accused the plant of depleting groundwater and harming agriculture in the region. The plant, which has also been accused of dumping solid waste, has been closed since 2004.
The Kerala government set up a 14-member committee of experts in April 2009 to assess the socio-economic damage caused by exploitation of groundwater by the plant.
The committee found that the plant had adversely affected water availability, left borewells and shallow open wells dry, and severely affected water quality in the area. Toxic chemicals dumped by the factory all around, including in the paddy fields, had contaminated the soil and groundwater, making land unsuitable for cultivation.
The committee quantified the damage suffered by various sectors as a consequence of the plant’s functioning: loss to agriculture: Rs 16 crore, pollution of water resources: Rs 62 crore, cost of providing water: Rs 20 crore, damage to health: Rs 30 crore, wage loss and opportunity cost: Rs 20 crore.
It also recommended setting up a tribunal to take the legal process forward as the local community would be unable to do so on its own.
Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages, as the company is known in India, has rejected the report saying that the committee was appointed on the “unproven assumption that damage was caused by HCCB”.
Villagers, who are mostly engaged in agriculture, have been complaining that water sources have dried up, wells have become toxic and people who used the water for drinking and other purposes have developed various illnesses. The plant was drawing sub-surface water from huge wells sunk in the factory premises. One million litres of water was being drawn every day.
Local protests were backed by wider national support from Medha Patkar’s National Alliance for People’s Movements and others. The Perumatty panchayat, controlled by the Left Democratic Front, cancelled the operating licence issued to HCCB, though the state government later restored it and stayed the panchayat order.
A turning point in the agitation came when the BBC reported that effluents from the plant -- the chief cause of water pollution in the area -- contained high levels of cadmium and lead.
This was later corroborated by the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Pesticide Residues and Safety Standards for Soft Drinks, Fruit Juices and Other Beverages, in its report in January 2004. The report stated that the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), in a note submitted to the JPC, had stated that sludge from the effluent treatment plant was hazardous as its cadmium content was found to be more than 50 mg/kg. As a result of this finding, the CPCB directed the Kerala State Pollution Control Board to ensure that sludge from the plant was treated and disposed of according to the Hazardous Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 1989, where heavy metal concentrations exceed limits.
In a related development, the Kerala High Court halted the drawing of sub-surface water for commercial purposes on February 17, 2004. In the summer of 2004, the entire district was declared drought-affected and the plant had to stop operations from March.
Source: www.domain-b.com, March 22, 2010
The Indian Express, March 22 and 23, 2010
www.infochangeindia.org, February 2005