Community Water Rights: Coke in India

Tell Coke to Listen to the People: Stop Draining Their Water

More than one billion people lack access to clean drinking and in one of the world’s most populous countries, corporate control is making the problem worse.
 
There are several villages in India where people have lived for generations off the community's groundwater. The water has been a shared resource, owned by no one. But now Coke drains water from these communities by pumping it out of the ground, in some cases for 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Public wells are drying up, local farmers don't have enough water for growing the food that the communities depend on and many people don't have enough water to meet their basic daily needs.

People's lives are threatened. It's more than ironic that Coke promotes its Dasani bottled water with the slogan "can't live without it."

What You Can Do About It 

Thousands of people have sent letters and e-mails, and hundreds more have called Coke's headquarters in Atlanta, telling Coke to stop running Indian communities dry and starting by:

• Never reopening its plant in Plachimada,
• Closing its plant in Mehdiganj and
• Paying for the damage done to affected communities.
• Take action here.