U.S. Water News Online
COHIN, India -- A village council says it will decide soon whether to shut down a Coca-Cola plant in southern India because of allegations it is depleting groundwater.
``We have the legal right to cancel the license of any industrial unit ... if it adversely affects the people of the locality,'' A. Krishnan, chief of Perumatty village in the southern Indian state of Kerala, said in an interview.
``I have asked the Coke officials to appear before the council once again,'' he said, adding that the council will announce its decision the same day.
Perumatty council controls several villages in the Palghat district, 80 miles north of the state's commercial hub, Cochin. The Coca-Cola plant was set up in the village of Plachimada in 1998.
Representatives of Atlanta-based Coca-Cola testified before the village council earlier this month, saying that its local plant is not depleting groundwater, and should not be closed.
Company officials will attend the council hearing on Dec. 2, H.K.K. Warrier, human relations manager at the Coca-Cola plant, told The Associated Press.
``We will submit before the council all the facts and figures to prove that our plant is not over-exploiting groundwater,'' Warrier said
Krishnan, the council chief who opposes the plant, said Coca-Cola had not provided information he wanted on products manufactured in the plant, the quality of groundwater used, facilities for recharging groundwater and details of the company's Indian directors and shareholders in the company.
He refused to explain how that information related to the issue of depleted groundwater. Activists, farmers and villagers have staged occasional protests outside the plant over the past few months. Coke officials have said most of the protesters are paid, or are opposed to the corporation doing business in India on political grounds.
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