Coca-Cola must stop use of groundwater for its Mehdiganj plant in Varanasi district, demand 18 village panchayats

By Amit Srivastava*
Eighteen village panchayats (councils) in the immediate vicinity of the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Mehdiganj in Varanasi district of Uttar Pradesh have come together to demand that the groundwater used by Coca-Cola be stopped immediately due to the growing water crisis in the area.
The village councils are located within a five-km radius of the Coca-Cola plant, and villagers have experienced water shortages soon after Coca-Cola began operations in 1999. The area surrounding the bottling plant is largely agrarian, and relies on groundwater to meet most of its needs, including drinking, irrigation, cleaning and for livestock.
Coca-Cola also uses the same common groundwater source to meet its production needs, placing its groundwater use in direct competition with the community in an area running short of water.
The deteriorating groundwater conditions experienced by the communities are substantiated by government data that have confirmed sharp drops in groundwater level in the area. The area’s groundwater was declared as “over-exploited” by the government just last year. Over-exploited is the worst category possible and implies that more water is being extracted than being recharged, and many restrictions on the use of groundwater by the community and farmers are put into place.
In letters to the Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board, the state government agency that has been responsible for granting a license to Coca-Cola, the village council heads (sarpanches) note that it is not acceptable that Coca-Cola continues to extract groundwater for profit while everyone faces a water crisis in the area. The letter also notes that children, women, farmers, the poor and livestock are affected the most from the growing water crisis.
The letters ask that the groundwater extraction by Coca-Cola be stopped immediately.
The village councils had also written a letter in April 2013 objecting to Coca-Cola’s plans to expand the bottling plant in Mehdiganj. After a sustained international campaign to not allow Coca-Cola to expand, the government rejected Coca-Cola’s plans for expansion in August 2014.
The letter from the village councils in Varanasi comes at a time when the Indian government has brought forward new and more stringent regulations to regulate groundwater use by industries, and in particular, water intensive industries such as beverages, breweries and pulp and paper. The move to strengthen groundwater regulations come largely as the result of pressure from activists as well as directions from the National Green Tribunal (NGT), India’s green court.
The new guidelines to regulate groundwater became effective on November 16, 2015, and a significant addition was to bring existing industries under the purview of the latest guidelines – a key demand of the India Resource Center as it has campaigned to end groundwater abuse by industries.
The 18 panchayats whose sarpanches have signed letters are Mehdiganj, Babhaniyav, Moglavir, Bhikaripur, Nagepur, Kallipur, Kundariya, Ganeshpur, Benipur, Chandapur, Kachariya, Rakhona, Deora, Dholapur, Bhadrashi, Jansa, Khajuri, and Parmandapur. The Gram Panchyats are also joined in their demands by Arajiline block President Shakuntala Dewi, as well as MLA Mahendra Singh Patel. The India Resource Centre, a project of Global Resistance, an international campaign organization, says, “Elected village council heads represent the voice of the people, and they are clear that Coca-Cola is not welcome in Mehdiganj. It is time for Coca-Cola to pack up and leave.”
It adds, “Coca-Cola paints a pretty picture of itself internationally as a responsible user of water but the reality in India is that it exploits groundwater at the expense of the poor, the women, children, farmers and livestock who have to live with less water because Coca-Cola mines groundwater in a water scarce area for profit.”
---
*India Resource Centre, www.IndiaResource.org

Comments

Urgent need to study cause of large number of natural deaths in Gulf countries

By Venkatesh Nayak* According to data tabled in Parliament in April 2018, there are 87.76 lakh (8.77 million) Indians in six Gulf countries, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). While replying to an Unstarred Question (#6091) raised in the Lok Sabha, the Union Minister of State for External Affairs said, during the first half of this financial year alone (between April-September 2018), blue-collared Indian workers in these countries had remitted USD 33.47 Billion back home. Not much is known about the human cost of such earnings which swell up the country’s forex reserves quietly. My recent RTI intervention and research of proceedings in Parliament has revealed that between 2012 and mid-2018 more than 24,570 Indian Workers died in these Gulf countries. This works out to an average of more than 10 deaths per day. For every US$ 1 Billion they remitted to India during the same period there were at least 117 deaths of Indian Workers in Gulf ...

A comrade in culture and controversy: Yao Wenyuan’s revolutionary legacy

By Harsh Thakor* This year marks two important anniversaries in Chinese revolutionary history—the 20th death anniversary of Yao Wenyuan, and the 50th anniversary of his seminal essay "On the Social Basis of the Lin Biao Anti-Party Clique". These milestones invite reflection on the man whose pen ignited the first sparks of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and whose sharp ideological interventions left an indelible imprint on the political and cultural landscape of socialist China.

History, culture and literature of Fatehpur, UP, from where Maulana Hasrat Mohani hailed

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Maulana Hasrat Mohani was a member of the Constituent Assembly and an extremely important leader of our freedom movement. Born in Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh, Hasrat Mohani's relationship with nearby district of Fatehpur is interesting and not explored much by biographers and historians. Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri has written a book on Maulana Hasrat Mohani and Fatehpur. The book is in Urdu. He has just come out with another important book, 'Hindi kee Pratham Rachna: Chandayan' authored by Mulla Daud Dalmai.' During my recent visit to Fatehpur town, I had an opportunity to meet Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri and recorded a conversation with him on issues of history, culture and literature of Fatehpur. Sharing this conversation here with you. Kindly click this link. --- *Human rights defender. Facebook https://www.facebook.com/vbrawat , X @freetohumanity, Skype @vbrawat

India's health workers have no legal right for their protection, regrets NGO network

Counterview Desk In a letter to Union labour and employment minister Santosh Gangwar, the civil rights group Occupational and Environmental Health Network of India (OEHNI), writing against the backdrop of strike by Bhabha hospital heath care workers, has insisted that they should be given “clear legal right for their protection”.

Uttarakhand tunnel disaster: 'Question mark' on rescue plan, appraisal, construction

By Bhim Singh Rawat* As many as 40 workers were trapped inside Barkot-Silkyara tunnel in Uttarkashi after a portion of the 4.5 km long, supposedly completed portion of the tunnel, collapsed early morning on Sunday, Nov 12, 2023. The incident has once again raised several questions over negligence in planning, appraisal and construction, absence of emergency rescue plan, violations of labour laws and environmental norms resulting in this avoidable accident.

Women's rights leaders told to negotiate with Muslimness, as India's donor agencies shun the word Muslim

By A Representative Former vice-president Hamid Ansari has sharply criticized donor agencies engaged in nongovernmental development work, saying that they seek to "help out" marginalizes communities with their funds, but shy away from naming Muslims as the target group, something, he insisted, needs to change. Speaking at a book release function in Delhi, he said, since large sections of Muslims are poor, they need political as also social outreach.

Job opportunities decreasing, wages remain low: Delhi construction workers' plight

By Bharat Dogra* It was about 32 years back that a hut colony in posh Prashant Vihar area of Delhi was demolished. It was after a great struggle that the people evicted from here could get alternative plots that were not too far away from their earlier colony. Nirmana, an organization of construction workers, played an important role in helping the evicted people to get this alternative land. At that time it was a big relief to get this alternative land, even though the plots given to them were very small ones of 10X8 feet size. The people worked hard to construct new houses, often constructing two floors so that the family could be accommodated in the small plots. However a recent visit revealed that people are rather disheartened now by a number of adverse factors. They have not been given the proper allotment papers yet. There is still no sewer system here. They have to use public toilets constructed some distance away which can sometimes be quite messy. There is still no...

Bihar’s land at ₹1 per acre for Adani sparks outrage, NAPM calls it crony capitalism

By A Representative The National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM) has strongly condemned the Bihar government’s decision to lease 1,050 acres of land in Pirpainti, Bhagalpur district, to Adani Power for a 2,400 MW coal-based thermal power project.

Sardar Patel was on Nathuram Godse's hit list: Noted Marathi writer Sadanand More

Sadanand More (right) By A Representative In a surprise revelation, well-known Gujarati journalist Hari Desai has claimed that Nathuram Godse did not just kill Mahatma Gandhi, but also intended to kill Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Citing a voluminous book authored by Sadanand More, “Lokmanya to Mahatma”, Volume II, translated from Marathi into English last year, Desai says, nowadays, there is a lot of talk about conspiracy to kill Gandhi, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, and Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, but little is known about how the Sardar was also targeted.

Counterview

Search This Blog