Green activists have started a three-week long water rights tour that will pass through most places in UP, some parts of Rajasthan and culminate in Delhi on Oct 3.
VARANASI: Even as soft drink majors Coke and Pepsi are finding it hard to get out of the pesticides controversy, green activists have started a three-week long water rights tour against the multinationals.
The tour, to assert community rights over water, was flagged off on Sunday at Mehdiganj in Uttar Pradesh, the site of one of Coca-Cola's bottling plants in India, which is allegedly creating both water shortage and pollution.
It will pass through most places in the state of Uttar Pradesh, some parts of Rajasthan and culminate in Delhi on Oct 3 after a demonstration at Coca-Cola's Indian headquarters at Gurgaon.
The tour will stop both at Coca-Cola and PepsiCo plants in Uttar Pradesh and in Kala Dera in Rajasthan to bring attention to the water shortages and pollution being caused by the companies.
"It's a campaign signaling the beginning of the end of Coca-Cola and PepsiCo in India," said Nandlal Master of Lok Samiti, one of the main organisers of the tour, said.
"Privatisation of water, where the cola companies get large amounts of groundwater practically for free, is not working for us. It leaves us without water, and is destroying the lives and livelihoods of thousands of farmers in India," he added.
According to the statement, a recent study of water conditions in eight villages within a three-kilometre radius of the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Mehdiganj found that the number of wells that had dried up increased seven-fold since the company commenced its operations.
"The water levels in the wells in the area had dropped 18 feet," the statement added.
Both Coca-Cola and Pepsi were under fire in India recently after Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), found high levels of pesticides in 11 brands of both the companies, much beyond the permissible limit.
While seven states have imposed partial bans on the sale of Coke and Pepsi, Kerala has shut down both the plants of the two companies.
Magsaysay award winner, Sandeep Pandey said the "focal point of the tour is to highlight the miseries of farmers and communities as a result of the extraction of enormous ground water by these companies".
They have also called for a boycott of Coca-Cola and Pepsi products.
"Coca-Cola and PepsiCo's involvement in India cannot be called development. Their activities deprive the very fabric of India - its farmers - of one of its most essential resources, water," said Amit Srivastava, another activist.
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