Water resources over-exploited
The majority of the bottling plants are dependent on groundwater. They create huge water stress in the areas where they operate because groundwater is also the main source - in most places the only source - of drinking water in India.This has created huge conflict between the community and the bottling plants.
Private companies in India can siphon out, exhaust and export groundwater free because the groundwater law in the country is archaic and not in tune with the realities of modern capitalist societies. The existing law says that "the person who owns the land owns the
groundwater beneath". This means that, theoretically, a person can buy one square metre of land and take all the groundwater of the surrounding areas and the law of land cannot object to it. This law is the core of the conflict between the community and the companies and the major reason for making the business of bottled water in the country highly lucrative.
Take for instance the case of Coca-Cola's bottling plant in drought-prone Kala Dera near Jaipur. Coca-Cola gets its water free except for a tiny cess (for discharging the wastewater) it pays to the State Pollution Control Board - a little over Rs.5,000 a year during 2000-02 and Rs.24,246 in 2003. It extracts half a million litres of water every day - at a cost of 14 paise per 1,000 litres. So, a Rs.10 per litre Kinley water has a raw material cost of just 0.02-0.03 paise. (It takes about two to three litres of groundwater to make one litre of bottled water.)
On April 7, more than 1,500 villagers defied a police cordon and marched to Coca-Cola's bottling plant in Mehdiganj village, Varanasi, in Uttar Pradesh state, demanding that the company immediately shut down its bottling plant. In January, the New Delhi-based Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) advised Coca-Cola to shut a bottling plant in the drought-stricken state of Rajasthan.
India's Ministry of Water Resources has ranked 80% of ground water resources in Rajasthan as "over- exploited" and nearly 34% resources as "dark/ critical", the gravest ranking across the country
The majority of the bottling plants are dependent on groundwater. They create huge water stress in the areas where they operate because groundwater is also the main source - in most places the only source - of drinking water in India.This has created huge conflict between the community and the bottling plants.
Private companies in India can siphon out, exhaust and export groundwater free because the groundwater law in the country is archaic and not in tune with the realities of modern capitalist societies. The existing law says that "the person who owns the land owns the
groundwater beneath". This means that, theoretically, a person can buy one square metre of land and take all the groundwater of the surrounding areas and the law of land cannot object to it. This law is the core of the conflict between the community and the companies and the major reason for making the business of bottled water in the country highly lucrative.
Take for instance the case of Coca-Cola's bottling plant in drought-prone Kala Dera near Jaipur. Coca-Cola gets its water free except for a tiny cess (for discharging the wastewater) it pays to the State Pollution Control Board - a little over Rs.5,000 a year during 2000-02 and Rs.24,246 in 2003. It extracts half a million litres of water every day - at a cost of 14 paise per 1,000 litres. So, a Rs.10 per litre Kinley water has a raw material cost of just 0.02-0.03 paise. (It takes about two to three litres of groundwater to make one litre of bottled water.)
On April 7, more than 1,500 villagers defied a police cordon and marched to Coca-Cola's bottling plant in Mehdiganj village, Varanasi, in Uttar Pradesh state, demanding that the company immediately shut down its bottling plant. In January, the New Delhi-based Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) advised Coca-Cola to shut a bottling plant in the drought-stricken state of Rajasthan.
India's Ministry of Water Resources has ranked 80% of ground water resources in Rajasthan as "over- exploited" and nearly 34% resources as "dark/ critical", the gravest ranking across the country
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