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Campaign Against Coca-Cola Expands to Pepsi-Cola
Financial Express
May 4, 2005
KOCHI: The agitation against the Coca-Cola bottling plant at Plachimada
in Palakkad district entering the fourth year, the ire has now spread
to the nearby Pepsi plant at Kanjikode in the same district. An anti-Pepsi
agitation on similar lines has been announced.
The agitation will assume a larger dimension with moves afoot to make
the whole of Palakkad district Cola-Pepsi free. To start with, a campaign
will be launched from May 15 in Perumatty panchayat to boycott all
Coke and Pepsi products. This will then be spread to the whole district,
according to panchayat president A Krishnan. The agitation against
the Coke plant started way back on April 22, 2002, after charges by
the people that the plant which began operations in 2000, was excessively
drawing ground water which had left the vicinity parched. Things had
not been running smooth for the Coke plant ever since the agitation
began. To add to its woes were reports of its toxic slush being flushed
out.
When the panchayat refused to renew the licence granted to the company
earlier despite public protest, there was government intervention.
The panchayat moved the Kerala high court in 2003 and a single bench
of the court upheld the panchayat decision and directed the company
to find alternative sources of water. This forced the company to stop
production and challenge the court order.
The court appointed a committee of experts to study the water situation
which said the company could draw five lakh litre of groundwater daily.
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