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Coca-Cola’s Dasna plant shuts operations; Pollution violations reason
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Wednesday, 31 August, 2016, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Ashwani Maindola, New Delhi
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fiogf49gjkf0d fiogf49gjkf0d Operations at Coca-Cola’s Dasna bottling plant in Uttar Pradesh have been shut for the time being due to alleged pollution violations. The Uttar Pradeh Pollution Control Board (UPPCB) has withheld the permission for operations on account of incomplete environmental compliance.
The company stated recently that it was complying with the mandatory norms, adding that it had received a notice from UPPCB.
It added, “All plants of Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages (HCCB) operate in full compliance with all regulatory norms, and the Dasna plant is no exception. Being a responsible corporate citizen, HCCB complies with the law in letter and spirit.”
“We received a communication from UPPCB and submitted a detailed response. Since UPPCB is reviewing it. We decided to temporarily suspend manufacturing manufacturing at the Dasna plant to show our commitment to compliance with regulatory norms,” the statement said.
Environmental activists stated that the bottling plant in Dasna had been under scrutiny by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) since 2015, and a number of inspections by government regulators found it to be flouting environmental laws in India and operating without valid licences or a no objection certificate (NOC).
Indian Resource’s Amit Srivastava said, “Coca-Cola had enough time to rectify the pollution violations, and the company was given a prior notice before inspections.”
“Yet, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), India’s top environmental regulatory agency, and UPPCB have continued to find serious pollution violations by the Coca-Cola company, including operation without a valid licence or NOC in 2015 and 2016, of the two effluent treatment plants (ETP) at the plant (one for medium and the other for high-strength organic waste water), the ETP for the high-strength organic waste water was not working and in a defunct state, discharging waste water into a pond located 1.5km from the plant which has been found to be faulty in design, encouraging farmers to use the water from the pond for irrigation, even as pond water tested found it is not complying with the general standards in respect to TSS, COD, BOD and Coliforms,” he added.
“Fecal Coliform, an indicator of raw sewage, was found to exceed the standard by 3,400 times in the pond water, the boilers and the diesel generator sets in the plant were violating air pollution laws. The plant has two sewage treatment plants, both of which were non-operational and in the junk state,” Srivastava said.
He further said a case is going on on the subject in the NGT. The next hearing is scheduled to take place on September 19.
The Dasna plant, located in Ghaziabad district (just under 40km from New Delhi) is the third plant to shut operations. Earlier, the cola major’s Jaipur plant shut down, reportedly due to a protest by locals. Another plant in Varanasi met with a similar fate.
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