Coca-Cola India has depleted already precious groundwater, illegally encroached on common lands, taken advantage of the absence of laws and used bureaucratic influence to damage the environment and rural communities of India, said Sandeep Pandey. The social activist, who spoke on campus Monday, is a recipient of the Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership, which is recognized as Asia's equivalent to the Nobel Prize.
The Austin chapters of the Association of India's Development and Asha for Education invited Pandey to speak and show a documentary at the University Monday night. The social activist, who spoke on campus Monday, is a recipient of the Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership, Asia's equivalent of the Nobel Prize.
Pandey's central struggle has been against bottling plants in India, especially in the north central state of Varanasi.
Currently, no law exists that regulates the use of groundwater below an individual's or a company's property, but Pandey said legislation is being worked on in India's parliament. Pandey said activists in India will not negotiate with Coca-Cola because its product is so destructive to the culture, community and environment.
"Coke is not a product with which we cannot live," Pandey said. "Coke is something that is not essential."
Kari Bjorhus, Coca-Cola spokeswoman, said the company fosters economic development with jobs and taxes and makes products for the people in the community.
"It doesn't make sense to go in and hurt the community," Bjorhus said. "The Coca-Cola Co. has one standard for environmental stewardship around the world."
In a country where water is so precious to the culture, it is not unusual for this type of disagreement between a company and environmental activists to occur, said Vijay Mahajan, marketing professor at the University.
"Both sides are right and both sides are wrong because whenever you have economic development in a country there are environmental concerns," Mahajan said. "There needs to be mutual understanding between the parties."
According to his research, a Coca-Cola plant produces 250,000 liters of soda per day and employs 500 workers. He said an individual producing and selling traditional drinks, such as buttermilk and lemon juice, can make 100 liters per day, and so it takes 2,500 workers to match Coca-Cola's 250,000 liters per day.
"In order to employ 500 people, Coke has displaced 2,000 people," Pandey said.
Pandey said plants that employ 500 workers have about 300 to 400 daily employees working without job security.
According to Coca-Cola, a bottling plant was commissioned for construction in Varanasi in 1999. Bjorhus said records from India's State Ground Water Department showed that the pre-monsoon season water level in the aquifer near the plant was 7.05 meters (23.27 feet), which is the distance below ground to the aquifer. In 2004, Bjorhus said the pre-monsoon water level rose to 6.75 meters (22.28 feet), which she said meant total water had also increased.
Pandey disagreed with the water table findings provided by Coca-Cola.
"They have influenced, fuzzed, the data," said Pandey, who said authentic data comes from local government and farmers. "If you go and ask the farmers, they will tell you the water table has gone down."
Pandey said Ram Jiyawan, a leader in the Panchayat, or village government, publicly admitted to media in November 2004 that the water table had gone down 50 feet in Varanasi while he was in office. Pandey said Jiyawan was later removed from office for letting Coca-Cola build a portion of its Varanasi plant on common lands shared by the community.
"The real culprit is Coca-Cola," said Pandey.
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