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Bottled Krishna: Farmers Fume at Allotment of Drinking Water to Coke
by Madhavi Tata
Outlook India
May 3,
2010
Water War
- AP has allotted 21.5 lakh litres of water per day from the Krishna
Water Main Canal to the Coca Cola plant at Atmakuru, Guntur
- The canal water is specifically meant for drinking and irrigation
- The water has been promised for 10 years at Rs 4,500/mn gallon
It’s farmers vs Coca Cola again, this time in Guntur district of Andhra
Pradesh. Even as several villages in the area grapple with acute drinking
water shortage and farmers seek better irrigation facilities, the
government has allotted 2,150 cubic metre or 21.5 lakh litres of water
from the river Krishna per day to M/s Hindustan Coca Cola Beverages
Pvt Ltd at its plant in Atmakuru village. The government order (GO
Ms. No. 26), issued on March 26, 2010, has triggered protests by farmer
bodies. The CPI, CPI(M) and the Telugu Desam Party say the state government
is compromising the farmers’ right to water by giving it to a beverage
company.
Coca Cola, which has been operating in Atmakuru for over a decade
now, earlier relied on groundwater for its operations. It sought permission
to use water from the Krishna Water Main Canal in December 2007. Permission
now granted, it has left locals fuming. According to the GO, Coca
Cola can use the 2,150 cu m a day for 10 years. The annual outflow
of water will be 0.02 tmc (thousand million cubic feet). The firm
will lay its own pipeline and water meter, and will be charged industrial
rates (Rs 4,500 per million gallon). The Krishna Water Main canal
is part of the Buckingham canal, which is specifically meant to meet
irrigation and drinking water requirements in Prakasam and Guntur
districts.
According to agricultural experts, 1 tmc of water can irrigate about
10,000 acres per annum. Therefore 0.02 tmc can irrigate 200 acres
per annum. This is the first time a beverage company is being allowed
to draw water from a canal specifically meant for irrigation and drinking.
However, both principal secretary, irrigation, S.K. Joshi, and the
Hindustan Coca Cola spokesperson term the quantity of water as negligible.
Joshi says the allotment of water will not affect the upper and lower
riparian rights along the canal. “Besides,” he adds, “the firm will
not be allowed to draw water for three months during the closure of
the canal.”
Farmers, however, are unwilling to buy the “negligible” explanation.
“If, as they say, the quantity is so less, why is Coca Cola so eager
to lay a pipeline at its own cost,” asks cpi’s Guntur district secretary,
Muppala Nageswara Rao, who staged a protest outside the Coca Cola
plant earlier this month along with farmers. “About 15 villages around
the Coca Cola factory have been seeking potable water from the government
under the protected drinking water scheme but to no avail. Places
like Atmakuru, Revendrapadu, Pedavadlapudi, Chinnavadlapudi, Ippatam,
Tadepalli, Duggirala and Tenali (rural) are struggling with water
shortage. Giving all these people the short shrift, the government
has issued this GO. Does the government want its rural poor to drink
beverages sold by Coke?”
TDP MLAs from Guntur P. Pulla Rao and D. Narendra Kumar wonder why
the government is being so generous to Coca Cola which “does business
in selling water and beverages whose quality itself has been suspect
for long”. Kumar says the GO has set a dangerous precedent that threatens
the water security of farmers and others. “If Coca Cola wanted only
a ‘small quantity’ of water, why couldn’t it ask the Mangalagiri municipality
(which would have refused a higher volume)? Moreover, the company
might even draw more than the allotted 0.02 tmc. If it draws 1 or
2 tmc, is there any authority to oversee this?” asks Kumar.
Pulla Rao says it’s astonishing that the government could favour a
company that has faced legal suits in Kerala. “As an industry, it
won’t even serve the people like, say, a power unit would. We demand
that the GO be withdrawn immediately,” he says. TDP chief Chandrababu
Naidu also spoke out against the move at a farmers’ protest rally
on Prakasam barrage. “Is there surplus water in the Krishna delta?”
he asked. “The state is supplying canal water to a commercial enterprise
which sells it right back to the people in the form of mineral water
and soft drinks at higher prices.”
The company’s use of groundwater till now, farmers in the area suspect,
has led to a fall in water tables and affected soil fertility. J.
Hanumantha Rao, a small farmer in Pedavadlapudi, says his crop of
corn has been affected badly over the last three years. “My yield
has fallen by 30 per cent. The plants, which are supposed to stand
for 120 days or so, now attain fruition in 80 days’ time. The size
and quality of the corn has been affected as a result,” he says. Bhavana
Srinivasa Rao, secretary, Guntur District Rythu Sangam, says that
soil salinity has increased in the last five years. “We strongly feel
that the company is dumping untreated waste water into the ground
and is overshooting its permissible limit of groundwater drawal,”
says Rao. Other farmers in Pedavadlapudi and Atmakuru—A. Radhakrishna,
J. Sambasiva Rao, B. Venkateswara Rao—complain of similar things.
“A white sheen is seen on our crop of lady’s finger and even the soil.
This is a sure pointer to pollution of groundwater,” says Venkateswara
Rao.
Many people in this village say the drinking water is really bad.
“We all buy water for cooking and drinking from a drinking water project
run by Naandi Foundation,” says Srinivasa Rao. What the villagers
don’t know, however, is that Coca Cola runs this community water initiative
along with Naandi in two villages of Guntur district.
There have been murmurs even within the Congress against the canal
water being supplied to Coca Cola. Deputy speaker Nadendla Manohar
has said it was incorrect to allow Coca Cola to draw Krishna water
from the canal and has spoken out against industry minister Kanna
Lakshminarayana’s decision.
Meanwhile, Deepak Jolly, vice president (public affairs and communications),
Coca Cola, protests against the “misinformation” campaign by some
political parties. “It has been Coca Cola’s policy to combine usage
of ground and surface water. Coca Cola is a respected company which
operates as per the laws of the land. We do a lot of CSR in AP. Coca
Cola is one of the largest buyers of mangoes from farmers for Maaza,”
says Jolly. What would he rather have? If they can’t have water, let
them have Coke, aye?
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