coke crimes in india

1. COKE'S CRIMES IN INDIA
Overexploitation and pollution of water sources in India.
Of the 200 countries where Coca-Cola is sold, India reportedly has the fastest-growing market,
but the adverse environmental impacts of its operations there have subjected the parent company
and its local bottlers to a firestorm of criticism and protest. There has been a growing outcry
against Coca-Cola's production practices in India, which are draining out vast amounts of public
groundwater and turning farming communities into virtual deserts. Suicide rates among Indian
farmers whose livelihoods are being destroyed are growing at an alarming rate. Every day for
years there has been some form of protest, from large demonstrations to small vigils, against
Coca-Cola's abuses in India.
Amit Srivastava addressing the Coca-Cola Board of Directors at the 2010 Shaholders
Meeting in Duluth, Georgia.
On Jan. 18, 2004, more than 500 protesters, including about 150 residents who live near Coke's
bottling facilities in India, marched and rallied to condemn the company. At the time, according
to Amit Srivastava of the India Resource Center, (For more information on Coca-Cola's crimes in
India, go to the site of the India Resource Center.) "Three communities in India — Plachimada in
Kerala, Wada in Maharashtra and Mehdiganj in Uttar Pradesh — are experiencing severe water
shortages as a result of Coca-Cola's mining of the majority of the common groundwater resources
around its facilities. Coke's indiscriminate dumping of waste water into the ground has polluted
the scarce water that remains. In Sivagangai, Tamil Nadu, residents are opposing a proposed
Coca-Cola facility because of fears that they too will face water shortages and pollution."
"The Indian Parliament has banned the sale of Coke and Pepsi products in its cafeteria,"
Srivastava added. "The parliamentarians should take the next logical step, and ban the sale of
Coke and Pepsi products in the entire country." He said the ban came as a result of tests by the
Indian government and private laboratories which found high concentrations of pesticides and
insecticides in the colas, making them unfit for consumption. "Some samples tested showed the
presence of these toxins to be more than 30 times the standard allowed by the European Union.
Tests of samples taken from the U.S. of the same drinks were found to be safe," he said.
"It is only a matter of time before the Coca-Cola company will be held financially and criminally
liable for their operations in water-stressed areas in India," Coca-Cola shareholders were told at
the April 2010 shareholders meeting in Duluth, Georgia. "The company management is being

2. seriously derelict in its duties by not acknowledging the real extent of the liabilities Coca-Cola
has incurred and continues to incur in India,' said Amit Srivastava.
Coke's Deception & Coverups
One of Coke's plants in India has been shut down since March 2004. The company's
overexploitation and pollution of scarce water resources continue to spark large protests.
And, as usual, Coke responds with public relations scams, deceptive statements and citations of
phony awards.
According to Coca-Cola in 2006, "For four consecutive years, Coca-Cola plants in India have
won the prestigious Golden Peacock Environment Management Award for environmental
practices from the Institute of Directors, which grants the award in association with the World
Environment Foundation."
Oddly enough, Coke at the time, didn't mention the fact that Sanjiv Gupta, president and CEO of
Coca-Cola India, sits on the executive council of the Institute and that Coca-Cola contributes
heavily to the World Environment Foundation.
Coke also boasted: "In late 2005, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) recognized the
Hindustan Coca-Cola Kaladera plant as a 'Water Efficient Unit' across industries at the National
Awards for Excellence in Water Management." But Coke didn't disclose that Tarun Das, director-general
of the Confederation of Indian Industry, serves on the International Advisory Council of
The Coca-Cola Company.
In 2007, at two Canadian college campuses, Coca-Cola continued spreading misleading
information about its activities in India and Colombia. Coke boasted that The Energy and
Resource Institute (TERI), described as "an Indian-based nonprofit research organization," had
"begun an assessment of our company's water resource management practices in India" and
would be 'working with an independent steering committee that will oversee the study..."

3. Months earlier, in April 2006, Coca-Cola's North American President Donald Knauss sent a letter
to the University of Michigan's Chief Financial Officer, Tim Slottow, that said in part: "We are in
active dialogue with TERI, a highly respected Dehli-based NGO with deep experience on
sustainability issues to develop a transparent and impartial independent third party assessment of
water resource management practices at Coca-Cola facilities in India..." Mr. Slottow immediately
responded for the university: "...[We] are supportive of your work with The Energy and Resource
Institute (TERI), a highly respected nonprofit organization with more than 30 years of experience
and leadership on sustainability issues, to develop a transparent and independent third party
assessment of water resource management practices at Coca-Cola bottling plants in India..."
It's simply amazing that any campus administrator, let alone the University of Michigan's CFO,
could be duped into believing that TERI would be impartial or independent. After all, Coca-Cola
India Ltd. was listed by TERI on its website as a corporate sponsor and TERI Governing Council
member Deepak S. Parekh was on the Advisory Board of Coca-Cola India. At the time, at least
two current projects of TERI were being sponsored by Coca-Cola India Ltd.
Report on Pesticides in Coke' Beverages
The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) issued a report of test results regarding
unacceptable levels of pesticides in Coca-Cola and Pepsi Cola soft drinks being sold throughout
India. The India Resource Center, reported that the study found high levels of lindane, a
confirmed carcinogen, sometimes as high as 140 times those allowed by EU and BIS standards;
chlorpyrifos, a neurotoxin, sometimes as high as 200 times those allowed by EU and BIS
standards; heptachlor, which is banned in India and not used in the US since 1988, was found in
71% of samples, at levels 4 times higher than the proposed BIS standards; and malathion, a
pesticide that was found in 38.6% of the samples tested. The U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency recommends that workers wait at least 12 hours before entering an area where malathion
has been applied.
"This is a grave public health scandal," said Sunita Narain, CSE's director and winner of the
prestigious 2005 Stockholm Water Prize.
Coca-Cola tries to undercut the credibility of CSE's test results by raising questions about the
accreditation of the CSE lab and the equipment and methodology it used. In the same breath,
Coca-Cola says, "The methods used to test our finished products have been developed by the
company and Central Science Laboratory (CSL), which is an independent laboratory used by the
U.K. government. Although the validation of the methods has not been completed, they represent
the state of the art in terms of procedure and technology. CSL runs an international program to
test the proficiency of laboratories in analysis, including pesticides."
On January 5, 2007, The Coca-Cola Co. issued a "report" to Coca-Cola North America College
and University Stakeholders focusing on issues in Colombia and India. In the report, Coke says:
"Tests by the Central Science Laboratory (CSL) on soft drinks made by the Coca-Cola Co. in
India detected no residues of the four pesticides allegedly found in the products by the Centre for
Science and Environment (CSE). CSL's tests reported less than 0.1 parts per billion of each of
these four pesticides."
But on August 14, 2006, BBC News had pointed out a significant flaw in CSL's tests. It reported
that "the tests were done by the UK-based Centre Science Laboratory (CSL), which is known for
its expertise in testing for pesticide residue in food. The Centre for Science and Environment
(CSE), which claims to have discovered the pesticide contamination in the first place, says the
[CSL] scientists only tested Coca-Cola samples provided by the company itself.

4. "Frank Lavin, U.S. Undersecretary for International Trade, warned that bans imposed on soft
drinks like Coca-Cola and Pepsi could blight India's hopes of attracting American investment and
result in a setback for the country's economy."
Might this have been a warning to British and Indian political leaders that they had better play
ball with the Coca-Colas of the world?
TERI Report on Coke in India: An Attempted Whitewash Gone Awry
To a corporate giant like The Coca-Cola Company, $2 million is insignificant pocket change -
literally a drop in the ocean of money it extracts from the worldwide markets where its
overpriced, often unhealthy beverages are sold.
So, did Coca-Cola get its money's worth when it paid a New Dehli-based think tank $2 million
for a "third-party assessment" of the environmental havoc it has wreaked in India?
"From a PR standpoint, which has always been Coke's concern, it appears they did," said Ray
Rogers, director of the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke. "At the same time, it confirms Coke's
gross misconduct with water management problems and how they caused environmental damage
they've been denying for years."
The report by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), 16 months in the making, noted that
while the plants it evaluated — only six of more than 50 Coke operates in India - may have met
some government regulatory standards, most did not achieve the wastewater standards set by the
company itself because of "presence of faecal coliform and several other physico-chemical
pollutants in the treated wastewater."
TERI ignored, for reasons never explained, the Coke bottling plant in Plachimada, Kerala, that
has been shut down since March 2004 after massive protests by activists from surrounding farms
and communities devastated by water scarcity and pollution.

5. However, the report said a watershed at Kaladera, Rajasthan, where one plant is located, has been
so "overexploited" that Coke should consider relocating the plant or shutting it down.
Misleading headlines (like "Coke Makes Cleanup Gains" in The Wall Street Journal) helped
Coke apply its PR spin to the TERI story, but no amount of glib interpretation can hide the fact
that Coke continues to cause devastating local water shortages.
The report notes, for example, that Coke's choices on where to site their plants are "strictly
business" decisions that cause great distress to local communities. It bluntly states that
"community water issues do not appear to form an integral part of the water resource
management practices of The Coca-Cola Company."
It even points out that the company hampered TERI's assessment by refusing to share the
environmental impact assessments for any one of the six plants.
Perhaps most noteworthy of all, it validates the main concerns of protestors about water scarcity
and pollution. "In general, the community perceptions were found in conformity to the results
obtained from the detailed technical assessment of groundwater resources," the report said.
Coke may claim to have been vindicated on the issue of pesticides since TERI said it detected
none in the water at the six plants, despite Indian environmentalists' finding that showed
dangerous levels in Coke drinks. But Coke is still doing its best to downplay or conceal the fact
that TERI tested only water, not Coke products
According to the Center for Science and Environment (CSE), headed by Sunita Narain, who won
the 2005 Stockholm Water Prize, Coca-Cola could not be described as pesticide-free, because
only the water had been tested and not the rest of the ingredients. A CSE statement said: "TERI
has not tested the final product, which we drink. The CSE study in 2003 and 2006 tested bottles
of colas and found pesticides above safe limits in the drinks."
"Coke's ability to influence the timing and media analysis of the TERI report made it well worth
the company's piddling $2 million investment," said Rogers. "They wouldn't pay two bucks for a
report they couldn't see first and sanitize as much as they could."
The University of Michigan and Coca-Cola agreed to commission the TERI report after students
argued that Coke's water-management practices violated the university's code of conduct for
vendors. UM was among the largest of more than 46 colleges and universities that removed Coke
products from campuses because of flagrant corporate irresponsibility overseas, particularly in
India and Colombia.
"Indian state to hear claims against Coke" by Jeremiah McWilliams, The Atlanta Journal-
Constitution, February 25, 2011
Read Article
"People who claim they were hurt by Coca-Cola bottling operations in a southern India village
can seek compensation from the company, according to legislation that sets up a claims tribunal
in the Indian state of Kerala...
"The bill stems from complaints against Coca-Cola surrounding a bottling plant in the village of
Plachimada. Seven years ago, protesters accused the Atlanta-based company of pollution and
water depletion. Coca-Cola closed the plant in 2004."
"Government to Introduce Legislation To Hold Coca-Cola Accountable: Bill Allows Coca-
Cola Affected Parties to Seek Compensation from Company" by India Resource Center,

6. February 18, 2011
Read Article
"New Delhi: The state government of Kerala in India has approved a draft Bill to set up a tribunal
which will allow individuals adversely affected by Coca-Cola's bottling operations in Plachimada
to seek compensation from the company. The state government is expected to introduce the Bill
in the state legislature next week, and the Bill is expected to pass.
"The decision to introduce the Bill to set up a mechanism to hold Coca-Cola financially
accountable for the damages it has caused is a very significant move by the state government of
Kerala. The passage of the Bill by the state legislature will formalize the state government's
position that Coca-Cola is responsible for causing environmental damages in and around its
bottling plant in Plachimada in the state of Kerala, and that the company must pay for the
damages it has caused."
India Resource Center, "New Report Highlights Coca-Cola's Shortcomings in India,"
January 21, 2008
Read Press Release
'The report by TERI is a damning indictment of Coca-Cola's operations in India. The report takes
the company to task for siting its bottling plants in already water stressed areas, without much
thought given to the impacts on communities. The report also validates the concerns of water
scarcity and pollution that have been raised by communities in Kala Dera, Mehdiganj as well as
others. A list of Coca-Cola's shortcomings, according to the report, follows this press note."
The Hindu, "Coca-Cola claims questioned,"January 17, 2008
Read Article
"He [R. Ajayan ofThe Plachimada Samara Aikyadartya Samithi] said Coca-Cola's decision to get
a 'third party study' done by an institution that 'enjoyed its sponsorship' had created a lot of protest
in the country. Even so, the report of the Delhi-based TERI, released on Tuesday, did not give the
company a clean certificate as was being made out by 'propagandists.'"
The New York Times, Coca-Cola Urged to Close an Indian Plant to Save Water," By Amelia
Gentleman, January 16, 2008
Read Article
"A leading environmental research group based here has asked Coca-Cola to consider shutting
down a bottling plant in the drought-stricken state of Rajasthan, saying that the plant is depleting
scarce water supplies."
IndiaPost.com, "TERI calls for closure of Coca-Cola plant," January 16, 2008
"In a major blow to the Coca-Cola company in India, a report by its ally, the Energy and
Resources Institute (TERI), has called for the closure of one of its bottling plants in India - in the
village of Kala Dera in the state of Rajasthan. Citing the widespread water shortages being
experienced by villages around Coca-Cola's bottling plant, the report by TERI recommends that
either the Coca-Cola bottling find alternative sources of water - a highly impractical option - or
either relocate or shut down the plant altogether."
The Economic Times, "TERI report not a clean chit to Coke: Plachimada Council,"
January 15, 2008
Read Article
"In a statement here, council convenor R Ajayan said TERI's 500-page report had not made any
suggestion of a clean chit, though the report was an attempt to hide certain facts and `whitewash'
the company's operations.

7. "The Plachimada Coke plant, which could not operate for the last four years following locals'
agitation was left out from the purview of the study. The report was silent on why the plant at
Plachimada and the one at Ballia in Uttar Pradesh had to suspend their operations.
"The Coca-Cola company's attempt to regain its lost credibility had once again failed, Ajayan
said. The company should explain to the people why Plachimada was not included in the study
conducted by TERI, he added."
Important Reports on India
High Power Committee to Asses the Extent of Damages Caused by the Coca-Cola Plant at
Plachimada, India, "Abstract: REPORT AND RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE HIGH
POWER COMMITTEE ON THE EXTENT OF DAMAGES CAUSED BY THE COCA
COLA PLANT AT PLACHIMADA, PALAKKAD DISTRICT," March 22, 2010
Read Report
We received an email from S. Faizi, environmental expert on the committee that wrote this
report: "The Report of the High Power Committee to Assess the Extent of Damages Caused by
the Coca Cola Plant at Plachimada and Claiming Compensation was submitted to the govt of
Kerala today. We have gathered impeccable evidence to show the depletion and pollution of
groundwater caused by the company...The multidisciplinary, 14-member committee was set up
by the Kerala govt. in April 2009. It was chaired by the Additional Chief Secretary Mr K
Jayakumar and included heads of various depts. I was its environment expert member. Early in
the course of the Committee's work Coca-Cola had sent us a threatening letter which we had
chosen to ignore."

8. International Environmental Law Research Centre, "Legal Implications of Plachimada: A
Case Study," By Sujith Koonan, May 2007
Read Report in .PDF
"The deterioration of groundwater in quality and quantity and the consequential public health
problems and the destruction of the agricultural economy are the main problems identified in
Plachimada. The activity of the Coca Cola company has caused or contributed a great deal to
these problems. The people living in the vicinity of the Company have been suffering these
problems for the last few years. The availability of good quality water for drinking purposes and
agriculture has been affected dangerously due to the activity of the Company. Apart from that, the
Company had also polluted the agricultural lands by depositing the hazardous wastes. All these
points to the gross violation of the basic human rights, that is, the right to life, right to livelihood
and the violation of the pollution control laws."
According to media reports and a press release from the India Resource Center, "In a major step
towards holding Coca-Cola accountable for damages it has caused in India, the state government
of Kerala decided on Wednesday to move forward with the formation of a tribunal that will hear
and award compensation claims against The Coca-Cola Company.
"The Kerala state cabinet's decision is based on the report and recommendations of a High Power
Committee which released a report on March 22, 2010 holding Coca-Cola responsible for causing
pollution and water depletion in Plachimada in the state of Kerala in south India.

9. "Using the 'polluter pays principle', the High Power Committee had recommended that Coca-Cola
be held liable for Indian Rupees 216 crore (US$ 48 million) for damages caused as a result of the
company's bottling operations in Plachimada.
"The Coca-Cola bottling plant in Plachimada has remained shut down since March 2004 as a
result of the community-led campaign in Plachimada challenging Coca-Cola's abuse of water
resources.
"The tribunal will consider claims of compensation from the Coca-Cola company relating to
'water and air pollution, loss of agricultural crops and animals, diseases affecting human beings in
the surrounding area due to the excess drawal and pollution of groundwater and surface water by
the Company,' according to the report accepted by the state government. The tribunal will also
consider claims related to 'loss of wages and loss of educational opportunities.'
"The report noted that the suggested figure of $48 million was "indicative in nature" and "should
not be treated as the outer limit of compensation." The report also stated that the 'actual
compensation will have to be calculated by an Authority duly set up for this purpose.' "
Bangkok Post, "Cola giants criticised amid India water crisis," April 21, 2010
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/asia/175345/cola-giants-criticised-amid-india-water-crisis
India Resource Center, "Government Moves to Claim $48 Million Compensation from
Coca-Cola: Will Set Up Claims Tribunal to Process Claims from Affected Parties," July 2,
21010
http://indiaresource.org/news/2010/1037.html
Indian police arrest Coke officials over plant deaths
Agence France-Presse, June 27, 2010
Three officials of an Indian unit of Coca-Cola have been arrested over the deaths of at least two
workers at a soft drinks bottling plant in the east of the country, police said on Sunday. The
accident occurred Friday in Khurda town, just south of Orissa state capital Bhubaneswar, when a
boiler exploded at the plant, police said.
Two workers died in the accident while five were seriously injured, police superintendent
Jitendra Patra said.
Local media reported a third worker had also been killed, but Patra said he could not confirm the
death.
He said police had arrested three officials from the plant on suspicion of negligence in connection
with the accident.
He would not identify the officials.
A team from the Orissa government's labour ministry was also investigating the accident.
"We are awaiting the report of the boiler inspector," Patra said.
Officials of Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Private Ltd declined to comment.