How do Coca-Cola and Pespsico figure in the depleting water table and ground water contamination issue?
Dropping water tables is a real problem in the country. The ground water is being used rapidly due to bad agricultural practices, resulting out of excessive and indiscriminate use of chemical pesticides and fertilisers. But commercialisation of water is also adding to the crisis. The cola companies are not only damaging the water around the 100-odd factories they have set up in the country by adding poisonous lead, cadmium and chromium to the ground water through sludge discharge but also causing water levels to drop at an alarming rate in the vicinity of the plants. Our studies show that the rate of drop in water level has exceeded by 1,000 per cent since Coca-Cola came in the Mehndiganj area in Uttar Pradesh. It is estimated that 92 per cent of a cola drink is carbonated water. Hence water as a raw material forms the very basis of Cola companies profit. Their plants extract up to 15 lakh liters of water per day from the ground out of which three quarters of the water is released as w
