NEW DELHI (AP) – Coca-Cola suspended bottling at three plants in India, including one in the parched northwest where farmers have been protesting the company’s use of dwindling groundwater reserves.
Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages, which is a subsidiary of The Coca-Cola Co. based in Atlanta, said it was reorganizing operations across its 24 franchise bottling plants in India according to market demand and factory upgrades.
The company’s action, however, follows more than a decade of agitation by farmers in the state of Rajasthan, where groundwater levels have been plummeting.
Coca-Cola said it runs the Kaladera plant in Rajasthan “as a responsible corporate citizen,” and is collecting rainwater and trying to get more farmers to use drip irrigation, a more efficient method of watering crops.
The plant is still being used for storage and other operations, and could be reopened “should there be a change in demand and volume,” company spokesman Kamlesh Sharma said Friday.