Coca-cola India found guilty of environmental damages – Kerala govt demands over Rs.200 crores
By Manoj Govindassamy on 24 March, 2010, 2:00 pm
When PepsiCo is trying to come up with health conscious cafes and other environment safe & green activities in the country, its competitor Coca-cola has been accused of causing damages to the environment.
Coca-Cola operates a bottling plant in Palakkad district of God’s own country – Kerala. State government of Kerala recently appointed a committee to study the environmental damages caused by coke’s bottling plant. The report on the same has been submitted few days back.
According to the report submitted by the committee, Coca-Cola has been found guilty of causing damages to the environment trough its bottling plant and the damages account for whopping Rs. 216 crores.
The report further splits up losses on account of the company’s bottling operations to agriculture at around Rs 84 crores and to health at Rs 30 crores. There was also loss of Rs 20 crores on account of wage loss and opportunity cost while that of providing water to villagers came to Rs 20 crores. The damage from pollution was estimated around Rs 62 crores.
Coke thus found to be causing damages worth Rs. 216 crores has been asked to compensate the affected people for the agricultural losses, health problems, loss of wages, loss of educational opportunities and the pollution caused to the water resources.
Nice to see Kerala government taking actions against people causing environmental damages. At times we are growing fast economically, If other state governments can also follow similar suit, then we should be able to keep our environment safe and pave way for a healthy next generation.
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