Coca-Cola stops production at Jaipur plant following NGO campaign against "indiscriminate" groundwater mining

By A Representative
Coca-Cola, one of the world’s premier soft drinks corporations, has stopped production at its bottling plant in Kala Dera in Jaipur, Rajasthan, with no plans to resume operations. Quoting a document in Hindi, India Resource Centre (IRC), a Global Resistance project, which campaigned against the plant, says that the plant was “disputed” as it was "indiscriminately mining groundwater."
IRC, in alliance with a local NGO, Kala Dera Sangharsh Samiti, has been campaigning against the company’s plant since 2003, accusing it of “exacerbating water shortages in the area.” In 1998, the area’s groundwater was declared as overexploited – the worst category of groundwater in India, yet Coca-Cola built a new bottling plant in 2000, IRC says an IRC communiqué.
Claims IRC, one of the reasons for the recent decision to stop production at the plant is, it had begun incurring financial losses. “Now it will serve solely as a storage and distribution center, according to a petition filed by the company”, it adds.
Accusing Coca Cola for “irresponsible business practices in Kala Dera”, IRC says, groundwater mining in the water scarce area, aggravating water shortages for the farmers and residents, all of which is “well documented.”
“In 2014, Dr Aneel Karnani of the University of Michigan's Stephen M Ross School of Business found Coca-Cola’s corporate social responsibility claims around its bottling plant in Kala Dera in India to be lacking merit”, says IRC. He concluded that the company’s extraction of groundwater in the water stressed area has led to the “tragedy of the commons”, it adds.
In 2008, Coca-Cola paid for an assessment of some of its bottling plants in India, including Kala Dera. The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), which conducted the study, recommended that Coca-Cola shut down its Kala Dera plant.
IRC quotes TERI as saying, “The plant's operations in this area would continue to be one of the contributors to a worsening water situation and a source of stress to the communities around.” However, it adds, “Coca-Cola ignored the recommendation.”
“We have campaigned for shutting the plant and we welcome the closure”, said Mahesh Yogi of the Kala Dera Sangharsh Samiti, a local group that has led the campaign. “However, Coca-Cola must also be held accountable for the damages it has caused to the farmers, to the watershed and to the community”.
“We have always known that Coca-Cola’s plant in Kala Dera would shut down one day because it would run out of water, as it has now. We would have preferred that Coca-Cola should have acted responsibly and never operated in a highly water stressed area”, added Amit Srivastava of IRC.
Srivastava demands, “Coca-Cola and its investors must take responsibility for the depleted watershed and the financial loss to farmers because of the company’s complete lack of respect for the communities’ right to water which has led to the tragedy of the commons.”
He adds, “Allowing Coca-Cola to just walk away after completely devastating the groundwater resources is not ethical, sets a bad precedent and the company must be held to account.”
Meanwhile, IRC says, Coca-Cola continues to face crisis in India due to its “mismanagement" of water resources, including the forced closure of their bottling plant by government authorities in Kerala in 2005, and closure of its 15-year-old plant in Varanasi."

Comments

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.

Gujarat Information Commission issues warning against misinterpretation of RTI orders

By A Representative The Gujarat Information Commission (GIC) has issued a press note clarifying that its orders limiting the number of Right to Information (RTI) applications for certain individuals apply only to those specific applicants. The GIC has warned that it will take disciplinary action against any public officials who misinterpret these orders to deny information to other citizens. The press note, signed by GIC Secretary Jaideep Dwivedi, states that the Right to Information Act, 2005, is a powerful tool for promoting transparency and accountability in public administration. However, the commission has observed that some applicants are misusing the act by filing an excessive number of applications, which disproportionately consumes the time and resources of Public Information Officers (PIOs), First Appellate Authorities (FAAs), and the commission itself. This misuse can cause delays for genuine applicants seeking justice. In response to this issue, and in acc...

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...

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.

'MGNREGA crisis deepening': NSM demands fair wages and end to digital exclusions

By A Representative The NREGA Sangharsh Morcha (NSM), a coalition of independent unions of MGNREGA workers, has warned that the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is facing a “severe crisis” due to persistent neglect and restrictive measures imposed by the Union Government.

Rally in Patna: Non-farmer bodies to highlight plight of agriculture in Eastern India ahead of march to Parliament

P Sainath By A Representative Ahead of the march to Parliament on November 29-30, 2018, organized by over 210 farmer and agricultural worker organisations of the country demanding a 21-day special session of Parliament to deliberate on remedial measures for safeguarding the interest of farm, farmers and agricultural workers, a mass rally been organized for November 23, Gandhi Sangrahalaya (Gandhi Museum), Gandhi Maidan, Patna. Say the organizers, the Eastern region merits special attention, because, while crisis of farmers and agricultural workers in Western, Southern and Northern India has received some attention in the media and central legislature, the plight of those in the Eastern region of the country (Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Eastern UP) has remained on the margins. To be addressed by P Sainath, founder of People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI), a statement issued ahead of the rally says, the Eastern India was the most prosperous regi...

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”.

As 2024 draws nearer, threatening signs appear of more destructive wars

By Bharat Dogra The four years from 2020 to 2023 have been very difficult and high risk years for humanity. In the first two years there was a pandemic and such severe disruption of social and economic life that countless people have not yet recovered from its many-sided adverse impacts. In the next two years there were outbreaks of two very high-risk wars which have worldwide implications including escalation into much wider conflicts. In addition there were highly threatening signs of increasing possibility of other very destructive wars. As the year 2023 appears to be headed for ending on a very grim note, there are apprehensions about what the next year 2024 may bring, and there are several kinds of fears. However to come back to the year 2020 first, the pandemic harmed and threatened a very large number of people. No less harmful was the fear epidemic, the epidemic of increasing mental stress and the cruel disruption of the life and livelihoods particularly among the weaker s...

Targeted eviction of Bengali-speaking Muslims across Assam districts alleged

By A Representative A delegation led by prominent academic and civil rights leader Sandeep Pandey visited three districts in Assam—Goalpara, Dhubri, and Lakhimpur—between 2 and 4 September 2025 to meet families affected by recent demolitions and evictions. The delegation reported widespread displacement of Bengali-speaking Muslim communities, many of whom possess valid citizenship documents including Aadhaar, voter ID, ration cards, PAN cards, and NRC certification.

Counterview

Search This Blog