Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Saturday, Aug 20, 2005
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Saturday, Aug 20, 2005 |
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Corporate
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Environment Kerala PCB orders closure of Coke unit Our Bureau
Thiruvananthapuram , Aug. 19 THE State Pollution Control Board has ordered the closure of Coca-Cola's unit at Plachimada in Palakkad district on the ground that it is causing serious environmental problems. The closure notice, issued on Friday, has cited a slew of reasons for the board's decision. It says that though the company has admitted the presence of cadmium in its sludge, it has not offered any explanation about its source. The board has detected that the sludge contains 400-600 per cent more cadmium than the permissible limit. Due to the presence of cadmium in the sludge as well as in the effluents let out by the plant, the groundwater in the vicinity was found contaminated. The notice also states that though specific instructions were issued to the company to provide drinking water facility to the people of the affected area and to install `reverse osmosis' system or a similar system for better treatment of effluents, the company had failed to comply with them. It has been pointed that the company had adopted `reverse osmosis' system for the treatment of raw water for purpose of production. However, no such system was installed for the treatment of effluents. The notice states that the board had issued a show-cause notice to the company on July 1, to give reasons against non-renewal of consent for continued operation of the plant. Subsequently, the company had written to the board seeking permission to appear before the Chairman of the board and offer an explanation. In response to the letter, the Chairman had given the opportunity to the company to present itself before him and give its side of the case. However, the company could not give satisfactory explanations to the various issues raised by the board. It is in these circumstances that the board has directed the company to wind up operations, says the notice. Reacting to the development, the Health Minister, Mr K.K. Ramachandran, has made it clear that the Government will not allow any factory that causes health problems to the people to function in the State.
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