Protesting against the damage caused to the groundwater in Kerala's Plachimada village by the Coca Cola plant nearby, local activists marched to the factory on Saturday and declared it 'occupied' in the name of the affected people.

“Fed up of the inaction on part of the central and state government, we decided to take action on our own,” Jeo Jose, of Plachimada action forum told Governance Now over phone from Kerala.

The protest against the factory began in 2002, after the villages in the vicinity of the factory found that the toxic waste dumped by the factory was contaminating their ground water.

While the factory was closed in 2004, after the village panchayat cancelled its license, no compensation was awarded to villages affected by the toxic waste generated by the factory.

“The forcible takeover of the factory is the culmination of the failure of the government to take action against the multinational company,” said Jose.
He said the struggle will continue till four demands of the agitator -- official closure of the factory and compensation to the victims, prosecution of the company for their human rights violations and crimes, empowering the local authorities, that is Gram Panchayats, to take the final call on how to use their natural resources and amending the Pollution Control Acts and Panchayati Raj Acts towards meeting this requirement—were met.

Meanwhile, the Medha Patkar-led National Alliance of People’s Movement (NAPM) has hailed the ‘direct action’ of the activists at the factory. “NAPM hails the action of these activists and salutes their courage for choosing to do this to bring home the dire need for quick passage of the ‘Plachimada Coca-Cola Victims’ Relief and Compensation Claims Special Tribunal Bill, 2011,” read a statement from NAPM.