Following the example set by their Tamil Nadu counterparts, a section of traders in Kerala has called for a State-wide ban on sale of soft drink products of multinational giants Coca-Cola and Pepsi. They are planning to start promoting and selling local and traditional cool drinks instead.
The traders say that their move is meant to protest against the alleged uncontrolled groundwater exploitation by the soft drink companies when the State is going through the worst drought it has faced in over a hundred years and a large number of villages and towns are already in the grip of acute drinking water shortage.
T Naseeruddin, president of the Kerala Vyapari Vyavasayi Ekopana Samithi, the biggest traders’ organization in the State, said in Kozhikode on Wednesday that a final decision on boycotting Pepsi and Coca-Cola soft drink products would be taken on March 14 after holding discussions with the State Government and the announcement would be made thereafter.
If the move for boycott materializes, Pepsi and Coca-Cola products will disappear from the shelves of over 700,000 shops in tiny Kerala. Samithi representatives said that the boycott decision was being taken in protest against the multinational companies’ excessive extraction of depleting groundwater in the time of one of the severest droughts the State had ever seen.
Instead of selling the MNCs’ soft drink products, the State traders would promote and sell local, organic and traditional drinks like lemon and other juice and tender coconut. Traders said they did not want to hold talks with the soft drink giants but were “ready to sell Kerala cool drinks”. They also expected total support from the State Government for the move.
“We are expecting support from the lDF Government which has a clear anti-MNC stand,” Naseeruddin said, adding that traders’ representatives would meet Marxist Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on the matter.
He said that traders from Tamil Nadu had approached his outfit to ask it to boycott the soft drink products of the multinational companies.
Two major traders’ bodies in Tamil Nadu had earlier decided to enforce a boycott of both the major cola brands from March 1across more than 20 lakh shops affiliated to them. It is not yet clear whether shops at big shopping malls in the Kerala cities would take Pepsi and Coke drinks off their shelves.
Traders also said that the health hazards the soft drinks giants were allegedly causing were also a reason for their decision to boycott their products. Naseeruddin alleged that the soft drink giants were not giving the required attention to waste management. Several environmentalists and rights groups have already welcomed the traders’ decision.
Meanwhile, Kerala Water Resources Minister Mathew T Thomas told the State Assembly that steps would be taken to put controls on the groundwater extraction by PepsiCo at its plant in Kanjikode in Palakkad district considering the fact that the groundwater level in the region had sunk by up to 1.8 metres.
Replying to a submission by former chief minister VS Achuthanandan, Thomas said that action would be taken against PepsiCo under the Disaster Management Act as the State Government had certain technical difficulties in acting against the company due to an order of the High court that allowed it to consume 600,000 litres of water a day.
According to weathermen and geologists, Kerala is perhaps heading to the severest drought in 116 years mainly because of the huge shortfall in rainfall in the last southwestern and northeastern monsoons. The State suffered a rainfall deficit of 34 percent in the June-September SW monsoon while the deficit in the October-December NE monsoon was over 60 percent.