Thirst For Closure

Traders in Tamil Nadu call for a boycott of Coco-Cola and PepsiCo's products for depleting water sources as the state faces a severe drought. They join a growing tide of communities forcing the closure of bottling plants across India.

- Kundan Pandey

HAVING TASTED success in the jallikattu row, protesters and activists in Tamil Nadu have raised the stakes. Recently, trader associations in the state called for a boycott of Coke and PepsiCo products and filed a petition in the Madras High Court to block the companies from drawing water from the Thamirabarani river near Tirunelveli. “These companies are extracting huge amounts of water daily when the state is battling a sever water crisis,” says A M Vikrama Raja of the Tamil Nadu Traders Federation. In Tamil Nadu, Coca-Cola has two bottling plants and PepsiCo has three. At Gangaikondan village in Tirunelveli district, both companies have a bottling plant. They extract and use 0.6 million litres of water each day, by paying a user fee of 37.5 paise per litre.

The court quashed the petition and allowed the companies to draw water, reversing its earlier November 2016 order stopping the companies to draw water. “We will now go to the Supreme Court,” says Raja. “Even though the high court has permitted the companies to draw water from the Tamirabarani river, we are not supplying water to these companies because there is a protest going on at the site,” says R Vasuki, managing director of State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu (spicot), which regulates the water usage.