Change, but no closure, in Plachimada

In Plachimada, a small Adivasi village in Palakkad district of Kerala, a constructing, as soon as notorious, was mendacity derelict and deserted till just lately. Overrun by weeds and bushes, it was exhausting to think about that this constructing was as soon as the bottling plant of Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages, the Indian subsidiary of the Atlanta-based producer of aerated drinks. Spread over 34 acres, the 35,000 sq ft ‘Coke building’, as it’s referred to by the locals, used to look haunted. Winds would whistle by way of damaged windowpanes and snakes would lie hidden in the thick undergrowth. People hardly ever loitered in the world.

Today, the sprawling single-storey edifice wears a contemporary coat of paint. The ‘Coca-Cola’ emblem has disappeared from the doorway of the constructing, which smells of disinfectants and paint. The contested website now serves an essential objective, to satisfy the challenges of the instances. The Government of Kerala has spruced up and transformed the constructing right into a COVID-19 care facility. The firm that had as soon as triggered grief to the locals closed the plant and left way back, but the constructing remained an emblem of despair. While the federal government believes that it has now turn into an indication of hope for all these affected by the raging pandemic, the villagers of Plachimada should not as enthused.

A reworked house

The miraculous transformation took barely six weeks. The native our bodies, helmed by the Perumatty Grama Panchayat in Palakkad, led the efforts. The constructing had caught the eye of the native directors in the course of the peak of the second COVID-19 wave in May. Palakkad was seeing greater than 3,500 infections day by day on common and a take a look at positivity charge of greater than 30%. The State Minister for Power, K. Krishnankutty, who wields nice affect in the jap Chittur belt, together with the Perumatty Grama Panchayat, is basically credited for changing the Coke constructing right into a healthcare facility with a transparent eye on a potential third wave of the pandemic sweeping throughout the district.

It was essential for the administration to make sure that the constructing was swiftly reworked. In May, discussions on the challenge assumed a way of urgency. In only a day, 200-odd volunteers beneath the management of the Perumatty Grama Panchayat president, Risha Premkumar, cleared the weeds and bushes in the compound of the plant. Eight neighbouring panchayats beneath the Chittur Block joined arms and supplied to donate as much as ₹10 lakh every when the District Disaster Management Authority and the Chittur Block Panchayat chipped in ₹30 lakh every. With ₹1.4 crore in their pocket, the authorities had been excited to take up the work of the brand new COVID-19 care centre. Officials in Coca-Cola chipped in too, providing their company social accountability (CSR) funds to renovate the constructing. According to sources in the federal government, Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages has spent ₹60 lakh from its CSR funds in three phases, together with to restore the constructing. Officials of the corporate refused to talk to this reporter.

With cash flowing in, new bogs had been constructed and water services organized. Apart from electrical partitioning and plumbing work, the Nirmithi Kendra organized cots, beds, and electrical fittings. A brand new spacious kitchen was arrange with services to cater to greater than 600 folks. Engineers with expertise in the medical area oversaw the establishing of a triage facility and sheds for biomedical waste disposal. With everybody working at a frenzied tempo, the aim was achieved in about six weeks.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan might barely conceal his pleasure when he inaugurated the hospital just about on June 17. He was all reward not just for the officers of Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages but additionally for all those that labored to construct the remedy centre. “Four weeks is record time in setting up such a huge facility. The Plachimada treatment centre will give us a fillip in the fight against COVID-19. The centre will be most suited for COVID-19 treatment as it is located quite a distance away from areas where people live,” he mentioned.

The care facility has 550 beds. Of them, 100 are oxygen beds, 50 are ICU beds and 20 have ventilators. It additionally has air-conditioned ready-made cabins, a conveyable X-ray console, a round the clock pharmacy, and a COVID-19 outpatient wing. The capability of the oxygen tank arrange on the centre may be enhanced from 1 KL to 2 KL.

At the time of going to press, 40 COVID-19 sufferers had sought admission on the facility. “The infrastructure is right. We can accommodate 400 patients now. Very soon, we will raise it to full capacity,” mentioned Nenmara Divisional Forest Officer R. Sivaprasad, the nodal officer of the centre. Doctors and nurses have been appointed to handle 200 sufferers around the clock. The sufferers right here should not as fearful and anxious concerning the virus as these in different components of the State. For now, none of them is critically ailing. At current, solely B-category sufferers are being admitted.

A water-guzzling plant

The uncommon silence in the hospital is in distinction to the pitched battle of the folks in Plachimada some twenty years in the past. The folks don’t present the identical pleasure that politicians and the federal government authorities show concerning the COVID-19 care facility.

Santhi C.S., a 43-year-old Adivasi lady who was on the forefront of the agitation towards Coca-Cola, mentioned: “The people of this village are still suffering. We haven’t been given a single paisa of compensation. So, how can we smile?”

Many who had been a part of the agitation echoed her sentiments. They mentioned that applauding the transformation of a plant that had destroyed their water sources would quantity to “making fun of the cause for which they stood”. Santhi, an ASHA employee, had been jailed a number of instances together with different leaders of the agitation. She had additionally undergone a week-long starvation strike. “They are cheating us. These political leaders have their vested interests,” she mentioned.

Wariness about official guarantees and initiatives stems from the occasions in Plachimada that grabbed international consideration in the early 2000s. Just a few months after Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages started operation in Plachimada in 2000, the villagers in the neighbouring areas started to face issues. According to 1 examine by Dr. Sathish Chandran, the water in some open wells and shallow bore wells which the villagers trusted started to style robust and bitter; in response to one other examine by Jananeethi, an NGO, it began tasting salty and exhausting after the corporate started manufacturing.

The plant, the villagers realised quickly, was a water-guzzler: it drew about 20 lakh litres of groundwater from six bore wells and two ponds in the world day by day. As a consequence, native wells had been slowly sucked dry. As the corporate had extracted extra groundwater, the villagers started to drink water with excessive ranges of calcium and magnesium.

Also learn | Coca-Cola not to return to Plachimada

Studies performed at a laboratory on the University of Exeter, U.K., discovered excessive ranges of lead and cadmium in the sludge from the manufacturing unit. The villagers had not been conscious of the well being threats posed by these metals till activists and scientists knowledgeable them about it. The sludge was initially offered to the farmers as fertilizer. Later, it was given free. When protests erupted, the sludge was dumped by the roadside.

“Many of us developed skin rashes and deformities. Although we stopped consuming the contaminated water in our wells, many of us had already fallen sick because of it,” recalled Santhi.

M. Thankavelu, son of Mayilamma, the ‘Plachimada Heroine’ who stood on the forefront of the agitation till her demise in 2007, was on the brink of demise after he contracted psoriasis. “Like my mother, I too contracted this terrible disease from our exposure to toxic water. I could not move out of my house for about a year. I never thought I could survive to speak to you now,” he mentioned.

C. Murugan, a paddy labourer from Plachimada, mentioned that at the very least half a dozen folks had miscarriages due to the contaminated water.

With water quickly depleting and giving all of them sorts of well being issues, the residents quickly turned parched. Many needed to trek lengthy distances for potable water. Their major livelihood from farming was affected and agricultural manufacturing declined.

From April 2002 to March 2004, Plachimada witnessed fierce and protracted protests, beneath the banner of the Coca-Cola Virudha Janakeeya Samara Samithy (Anti-Coca-Cola People’s Struggle Committee), demanding folks’s proper to pure sources, particularly water. Groups from totally different components of the nation joined the agitation. National activists like Medha Patkar and Vandana Shiva impressed the protesters. Hundreds of protesters, together with girls and kids, had been arrested and overwhelmed up. Soon, the agitation changed into an extended authorized battle.

A world water convention organised close to Plachimada in January 2004 adopted a declaration which said that “it is our fundamental obligation to prevent water scarcity and pollution and to preserve it for generations… Water is not a commodity. We should resist all criminal attempts to marketise, privatise and corporatise water. Only through these means can we ensure the fundamental and inalienable right to water for the people all over the world”.

The folks received the agitation in 2005 when the corporate lastly put up the shutters and left Plachimada. In 2017, Coca-Cola submitted to the Supreme Court that it had no intentions of resuming operations in Plachimada. Santhi, the joint convener of the protest physique, mentioned that it was not a mere victory of their agitation; “it was a victory of all such struggles to come”.

Waiting for compensation

However, the folks of Plachimada stay disillusioned. Governments have come and gone, but their guarantees haven’t been fulfilled. “The transformation of the building seems to be an effort to whitewash the actions of the multinational company. Governments have always been supporting the company. That’s why our leaders have not given the villagers who suffered from water pollution a single paisa in compensation,” alleged Arumughan Pathichira, State basic convener of the Samara Samithy. “If the government is honest, let it give the victims their compensation. We have no objection to the COVID-19 hospital; it is very important. But the government should have confiscated the property and compensated the victims,” he mentioned. Arumughan warned that the villagers would strengthen their agitation till the victims are duly compensated.

Adivasi girls sit exterior the Palakkad civil station on May 4, 2017, demanding compensation.
 
| Photo Credit: K.K. Mustafah

A government-appointed high-level committee headed by the then Additional Chief Secretary, K. Jayakumar, had assessed the degradation of the atmosphere and harm suffered by the folks of Plachimada and beneficial a compensation of ₹216.24 crore to be paid to them. The committee had additionally beneficial establishing a tribunal for correct distribution of damages. Although the State Assembly handed the Plachimada Coca-Cola Victims’ Relief and Compensation Claims Tribunal Bill in 2011, it didn’t get the Centre’s nod. And although the Left Democratic Front (LDF) authorities had assured the folks {that a} tribunal can be fashioned, in its 2016 Assembly election manifesto, this promise has not been saved. The LDF has obtained a consecutive second time period in Kerala but the folks of Plachimada should not hopeful.

Coca-Cola has persistently opposed the establishing of a tribunal. It has claimed that the estimated losses had been computed by way of a flawed course of. According to Coca-Cola, its operations in Plachimada didn’t trigger any water depletion or environmental harm as the corporate had adopted the identical course of in the village because it did all over the world.

The residents of the village scoff at this declare. “Everyone knows that the company has left leaving behind a trail of misery . We need compensation,” mentioned Sakthivel K., basic convener of the Samara Samithy. Sakthivel was among the many dozen-odd agitators who had been arrested by the police on June 17 for protesting exterior the brand new COVID-19 facility whereas the Chief Minister was inaugurating it. Front-line leaders of the Samara Samithy — Vijayan Ambalakkad and Vilayodi Venugopal — additionally courted arrest together with Sakthivel.

Preparing for a 3rd wave

For the State authorities, this new facility is greater than politics. Minister Krishnankutty, who has been concerned all through the method, mentioned the Plachimada facility will go a great distance in strengthening the district’s preparedness to face one other wave of COVID-19 infections. “We are thinking about how we can overcome the problems we faced in the second wave. Such a hospital in government control will help provide care for COVID-19 patients from all sections. We can ensure equity in treatment for everyone in the rural sector,” he mentioned.

Water for the ability will likely be drawn from a big pond throughout the compound. It will likely be used after UV filtering. Two tanks of 10,000 L capability every have been arrange and contemporary pipelines have been laid for the aim. Sivaprasad mentioned that potable water was out there and storage capability can be enhanced when extra sufferers come. Today, nearly all homes in the village have pipeline connections and water is being pumped in from the Bharathappuzha river.

The facility is near Kerala’s border with Tamil Nadu. If the COVID-19 state of affairs worsens throughout a 3rd wave, the hospital may be opened for the folks from Tamil Nadu as properly. The Palakkad district administration has given consent for this.

“We are happy we could use the abandoned factory to gear up for the next phase of the pandemic,” mentioned Premkumar. “We had faced many shortcomings when we set up a first-line treatment centre for COVID-19 at the Kerala Industrial Infrastructure Development Park at Kanjikode. Here, we have been able to address all of them,” she mentioned.

State Health Minister Veena George just lately visited the Plachimada hospital and mentioned that the State was ready to face a 3rd wave. Problems that the district noticed in the course of the second wave included a scarcity of oxygen beds, ICU beds and ventilators. Some personal hospitals refused to put aside beds for COVID-19 remedy. A current evaluation additionally discovered that numerous category-A sufferers had occupied the beds, resulting in a scarcity of beds for category-B sufferers. Given the failure to deal with non-COVID-19 instances, lengthy distances from homes to hospitals, and non-cooperation of some personal hospitals, instances shot up in Palakkad in current months.

A committee of officers and other people’s representatives will likely be in cost of the Plachimada COVID-19 hospital. But the folks nonetheless need closure for his or her previous struggling. Kanniyamma, 75, mentioned the early 2000s had been a horrible time. “We lost peace, our drinking water, our sound health,” she mentioned. The State authorities could have seized a possibility to heal Plachimada, but its residents are nonetheless removed from being placated.