PepsiCo and Coca-Cola were recently fined Rs 25 crore by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) for illegally extracting groundwater from the land at their respective manufacturing plants in Uttar Pradesh.
Moon Beverages (Coca-Cola) and Varun Beverages (PepsiCo) have been accused of breaking their licence terms by failing to meet groundwater recharge requirements and continued to extract groundwater after the NOC had expired.
The panel, which included NGT chairperson Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel, judicial members Sudhir Agarwal, Brajesh Sethi, and additional experts Professor A Senthil Well and Dr Afroz Ahmed, imposed a fine of Rs 1.85 crore on the Greater Noida plant, Rs 13.24 million on the Coca-Cola plant in Sahibabad, and Rs 9.71 crore on the Pepsi plant in Greater Noida.
The NGT has asked the Union Ministry of Forests and Environment, the Ministry of Jal Shakti, the Central Pollution Control Board, the Central Ground Water Tribunal, the Uttar Pradesh Ground Water Department, and district officers to strictly implement the groundwater recharge measures by visiting with a team of experts.
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