We, at Socialist Party (India), welcome the decision of Coca Cola to withdraw its application for expansion of production from Central Ground Water Board. We also believe that Coca Cola was going to get its application cancelled from Central Ground Water Board. We demand that operation of this Coca Cola plant (Hindustan Coca Cola Beverages Plant – HCCBP) in Mehndiganj, Varanasi, should stop. And company should windup from Varanasi.
Coca-Cola required permissions, or “No Objection Certificate (NOC)”, from the Central Ground Water Board (the national groundwater regulatory agency), and the Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board (UPPCB) – the statewide pollution regulatory agency. Central Ground Water Board was to take a decision on HCCBP’s application to expand its production by 25th August 2014, which we believe was to be declined, apprehending which HCCBP withdrew its application on 22nd August 2014.
Earlier a 6th June 2014 order of UP Pollution Control Board showed that HCCBP had increased its capacity without obtaining permission from concerned authorities and were misleading the UPPCB by continuing to show the same quantity of effluent. Considering that a 15 May, 2012 order of UP Government’s Chief Secretary declares the Araji Line Block, in which the Mehndiganj plant is located, ‘critical’ from the point of view of groundwater table and bans installation of borewells and water pumps, the abovementioned violation by HCCBP was very serious indeed.
We demand that the 6th June 2014 order of UPPCB should now prevail and the HCCBP plant should be shut down completely rather than being allowed to operate at its initial capacity.
Dr Sandeep Pandey
National Vice President, Socialist Party (India)
Visiting faculty, Department of Chemical Engineering, IIT-BHU
