BY RATHEESH KALIYADAN
KERALA — Plachimada has never been singled out as a village that exemplifies the "Kerala model of development". It is a tribal area that is highly crowded with destitute people. Families own tiny plots of land. The only jobs are as casual agricultural day labourers.
The good yields from the paddy fields of the area indicate the land's strength is its supply of fresh water. Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Limited has recognised the value of the land and its water. A Coca-Cola plant has operated near Plachimada, in Palakkad district, for the past three years.
The factory's 16-hectare compound was previously irrigated multi-cropped paddy land belonging to large landowners. People belonging to Eravala tribal community, from this area, said that the grounds were once good wetland, which was used to cultivate rice, vegetables and peanuts.
The Coca-Cola plant is a fine example for insatiable capitalist greed. It employs 70 permanent workers and 150 casual labourers. Every day, about 85 truck loads of products leave the factory. Each lorry is loaded with 550-600 cases. Each case contains 24 bottles. A single 300ml bottle costs a customer 9 rupees.
Therefore, Coca-Cola generates income of more than Rs10 million every day. But the cost of production, including wages and transportation, does not exceed Rs25,000 per day.
To make more than 300,000 litres of soft drink each day requires hundreds of thousands of litres of clean water. All the water requirements of the plant are met from more than 60 deep bores sunk within the factory's land, and from two large open wells. The water the company draws from these sources comes free of any charge. If Coca-Cola was charged for ground water at even a fraction of the price at which the company sells it as soft drink, it would have to pay millions of rupees.
The factory is located three kilometres to the north of the Meenkara Dam reservoir and a few hundred metres west of the Kambalathara and Vengalakkayam storage reservoirs. The Moolanthode main canal passes less than 10 metres north of the factory. The main Chittoor River is 2km north of the plant. This part of the Palakkad district is exclusively agricultural land and it depends heavily on canal irrigation and ground water.
That the Coca-Cola plant is sucking water from the Moolanthode Canal. The local people are being left with an increasing scarcity of water, as well as water contamination. Purification of groundwater, preparation of the bottled drink, cleaning used bottles and other activities generate a large amount of polluted water and chemical waste. There are plastic, paper, metallic and other solid wastes generated in the factory. At least 750 families suffer are affected.
When the site was acquired by Coca-Cola, management had promised clean piped drinking water for the nearby tribal communities. So far, only one bore well has been drilled but no pipes have been laid.
The continuous heavy withdrawal of groundwater by the plant has adversely affected the water table. Water availability in the open wells and shallow bore wells over an extensive area has drastically fallen. People report that before the Coke plant opened, they could earlier pump water for irrigation continuously for 24 hours. Now, within four hours of pumping their wells go dry. Salinity and hardness due to calcium salts have also increased.
Water from most of the wells is unpotable. Possibly due to excess groundwater withdrawal, minerals from the deeper soil layers could be moving to the upper layers and contaminating the water.
The precise chemical nature of the contaminants is still to be identified. Local people feel strongly that toxic chemicals from the plant's waste water are contaminating the ground water. Partially processed waste water from the plant is continually sprayed on the lawns and gardens within the factory compound. This is reaching the water table. The people living around the plant suspect that waste water is being pumped into the bore wells which have gone dry in the plant area.
Routine agriculture is already being adversely affected over the few hundred hectares acres of adjacent paddy lands due to water scarcity.
People who are forced to depend upon the brackish bitter water complain of a variety of illnesses. Women report that rice and dhal do not cook but become hard and that food prepared with it goes bad quickly. Those who bathe in the water report burning sensations on their skin and a greasy sticky feel to their hair.
Water from some of the domestic wells develops an intense milky colour after it is on boiled. Left to stand for a few hours, a considerable amount of whitish material emerges. The chemical nature of the substance is unknown. People who regularly use such water complain of stomach disorders.
There is aerating and sedimentation machinery for the partial treatment of the waste water within the factory compound. After treatment, a large quantity of semi-liquid and dry waste is generated. The solid waste is composed partially of dried sediment slurry, which is a yellow-white granulated substance with a faint sulfuric acid smell. There is also foul smelling, hard, dark, gritty stuff mixed with fibers, pieces of fabric and synthetic insulating material.
Local people report that this material is dumped in landfill sites within the compound. Large quantities of it are also being trucked out and disposed in the farmlands all around. The farmers are misled to believe that it is useful as fertilizer.
Locals report that 36 truck loads leave the factory every day. Each truck has six 200-litre barrels of waste. This is then indiscriminately poured over the land, including on to the banks of the large irrigation canal.
In the irrigated coconut groves, these waste materials have been spread around over a large area and has contaminated the soil, water and air. Farm labourers who have been exposed to this material develop rashes and skin problems, particularly around the ankles, within a short time.
If Coca-Cola is pumping waste water into dry bore wells, or disposing off the solid waste along canal banks, the pollution implications are far more serious. The main irrigation canals passing just by the plant could distribute the waste material over a much larger part of the Palakkad district.
Another distressing aspect of the Coca-Cola plant is the foul odour that emanates from it periodically, usually at night. It is causing violent reactions in pregnant women, old people and children. It might be coming from the sediment slurry when it is turned over. People describe it as being very like the smell from a putrid dead body.
The adverse affects of the plant particularly affect women. After normal work hours, the women must walk long distances to collect potable water for household use.
Women casual labourers are employed to spray the partially processed waters on the lawns inside factory compound. They report strong skin reactions.
Though the women are not given this particular task for long, and are rotated to other duties, some have developed deep, dark pigmentation on the outer surface of the palms and forearms. The same pigmentation also develops on the upper surface of the feet. Their soles are deeply cracked and the painful open wounds often develop secondary infections. The women are not provided with any protective gear.
After deducting the labour contractor's share, casual women labourers' take home pay amounts to Rs50 for a day's work, which starts at 8am and ends at 5.30pm. No trade union raises their issues seriously.
A protest movement is slowly but steadily building. If the mood turns violent in response to Coca-Cola's continuing assault on their survival, nobody can blame them.
[Ratheesh Kaliyadan is an Indian journalist who specialises in environmental reporting. He can be contacted at <kaliyadan@indiatimes.com>.]
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, May 22, 2002.
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