Coca Cola India under fire

The Coca Cola Company in India needs to re-think on how it can start afresh to revamp people’s confidence rather than proceeding with the expansion plan of its business in India.

Being the largest coca cola plant in the country does not necessarily sound good enough since it has not succeeded in satisfying the Indian community that its activities are environmental friendly or purely developmental.

Last year, the company announced its plan to spend 5 billion US Dollars as investment in India by 2020 for what it boasts of expansion plan to increase production and market. Says the Coke’s Chief Executive Muhtar Kent: “We think there is potential here which we want to tap it into India's growing thirst for soft drinks; a market which has not yet been exploited to its full potential.

That is notwithstanding the accusations that the company is putting thousands of farmers out of work by draining the water that feeds their wells and poisoning the land with waste sludge that the company claims is fertilizer. Main issues in environment are pesticide use, water use and material used for packaging while health effects have been acidity, tooth decay especially among children and high fructose corn syrup.

In 2003, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE),^[14][15] a non-governmental organisation in New Delhi, said aerated waters produced by soft drinks manufacturers in India, including multinational giants PepsiCo and Coca-Cola, contained toxins including lindane, DDT, malathion and chlorpyrifos — pesticides that can contribute to cancer and a breakdown of the immune system. Tested products included Coke, Pepsi, and several other soft drinks (7Up, Mirinda, Fanta, Thums Up, Limca, Sprite), many produced by The Coca-Cola Company.

In a recent report on Radio 4's Face the Facts programme details of the contaminants in the sludge Coca-Cola sells as fertiliser, gives away, or sometimes dumps in dry riverbeds are revealed for the first time.
Samples taken in India and analysed by Exeter University show high levels of lead and cadmium in the sludge. Lead is particularly bad for children, affecting their nervous system, and cadmium is taken up by plants, is toxic to the kidneys and liver and can cause cancer. \

The report by David Santillo says: "Repeated applications of sludge, containing these sorts of levels of cadmium and lead, to agricultural soils would undoubtedly lead to a build-up of these toxic metals in the soil, from where cadmium could then be transferred to plants _ and therefore into the food chain.

"This contaminated sludge sample also contained a high component of phosphorus, presumably the reason for its promotion as a fertiliser. However, the presence of high levels of cadmium and lead in the sludge make it completely unsuitable for use as a fertiliser."

Meanwhile, so desperate have the nearest villagers become for water since their wells dried up that Coca-Cola sends water tankers round every morning to supply minimum needs.

The company denies the shortages have anything to do with its use of up to 1m litres of water a day from the underground aquifer that used to keep the wells topped up.

Its vice-president (India) Sunil Gupta claims the company has been the target of a handful of extremist protesters and it is lack of rainfall that has caused local water supplies to be exhausted. The company claims to use a maximum of 600,000 litres a day.

Mr Gupta also says Coca-Cola undertook an environmental impact assessment before building the plant, but has declined to make one available.

At one of its plant in Kerala, the India’s southern state, the company’s aim has been to satisfy the demand for Coke. But its huge demand for water is seriously causing such damage to the local economy that the village council which had granted the company a license to operate is now demanding the plant’s closure.

An Indian environmental activist Vandana Shiva suggests that accomplishing the company’s plans for expansion, would have adverse effect on the water availability to the nearby community because the coke making uses a lot of water.

He says to manufacture a litre of Coke, the company needs nine litre of clean water.

The company is also under fire that it is monopolizing the business by stifling the competition to win the bigger share in the market. It is also accused of bribery, racial disrimination and bottling plant murders.

Althoug Coca Cola in India is still having cases before courts of laws, it remains to be seen that its development programmes should be reviewed, if the company thinks of sustainable development.