Coca-Cola has been ordered to pay $47 million in compensation for pollution its plant caused in the Kerala state in southern India.
A state-initiated panel found that the Palakkad bottling plant was guilty of polluting groundwater and foisting cadmium-laden waste sludge as fertilizer to local farmers.
Coca-Cola has refuted the allegations in a statement on its Web site and says the company is currently talking to the Indian central government to establish a uniform national regulatory framework for India. It claims that the company uses its bio-solids as a fertilizer around the world including the United States.
In August 2005 Kerala State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) closed the plant down amidst mass protests from poor farmers and environmental activists.
