Coca-Cola India shuts three plants as brand suffers inadequate demand

Coca-Cola India has stopped production at three plants ahead of the peak summer season due to inadequate demand of the brand's beverages.

The plants situated in Jaipur, Andhra Pradesh and Meghalaya are affected due to the agony. Activist body India Resource Center (IRC) reported the primary reasons for the closure to be the Kaladera plant in Jaipur, which increased difficulty in accessing groundwater from a depleted aquifer, in addition to incurring financial losses.

The spokesman of Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages (HCCB), Coca-Cola's bottling company, said production at the Kaladera plant had been halted because of lack of demand in the region and not due to charges of water depletion. The plant has currently suspended manufacturing, the spokesperson said.

Kaladera is the fourth Coca-Cola plant to face activist backlash over environmental issues. The company's plant at Plachimada in Kerala downed shutters in 2005 following an agitation and the two plants in Uttar Pradesh are facing local resistance over charges of groundwater depletion.

The Meghalaya unit is a small one, while the Andhra Pradesh facility is mid-sized. "We are going through a process of consolidation where new state-of-the art facilities are being built and existing production capacities are being optimized," HCCB said in a statement.

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) had in December last year issued a notice to the company, seeking an explanation of its plant's drainage and waste polluting the environment in Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad city.