New Delhi: Eighteen village councils in Varanasi, the Lok Sabha constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, are demanding a local Coca-Cola bottling plant be prohibited from extracting water from the ground.
Villagers say that the over usage of water by the company is affecting the water levels in various parts of the region.
According to several media report, all villages, located in Mehdiganj area of the district, are facing water shortages since 1999 when the plant began operations.
All the 18 village councils have also written to State Pollution Control Board, which granted a license to Coca-Cola, urging authorities to prohibit the company from extracting any more groundwater in the area.
Not only this, the village councils are also getting international backing for their cause. Amit Srivastava of the California-based India Resource Center, who supports the village councils, said that it is time for Coca-Cola to pack up and leave.
"The company Coca-Cola paints a pretty picture of itself internationally as a responsible user of water, but the reality in India is that it exploits groundwater at the expense of the poor, the women, children, farmers and livestock who have to live with less water because Coca-Cola mines groundwater in a water scarce area for profit," he said.
He also pointed to recent data released by the Central Ground Water Authority which declared Arajiline block, where the bottling plant in located, as over exploited in 2011.
Mehdiganj is largely agrarian and people here rely on groundwater to meet most of their needs including for irrigation.
