Coca Cola to set up water harvesting project in Lucknow

Coca Cola (India), with technical guidance from the Uttar Pradesh State Groundwater Board, installed a rain water harvesting project in Lucknow on Friday. The project came up at the official residence of the state environment minister, Ujjawal Raman Singh.

The project was commissioned under the aegis of Brindavan Bottlers Ltd, the authorised bottler of Coca Cola in Uttar Pradesh. This project aims at creating fresh annual groundwater recharge potential of 450 cubic metres (450,000 litres annually) at average rainfall.

In February, Coca Cola (India) had commissioned 5 rain water harvesting projects in the city. These projects had a capacity to recharge 30,00 cubic metres of ground water annually in normal monsoon.

The Coca Cola (India) Vice-President said said: "At Coca Cola, we reduce, reuse, recycle and recharge water for conservation. We share water resources with the local community. I hope that this step by Coca Cola will give a big fillip to rain water harvesting initiatives in Uttar Pradesh in general and Lucknow in particular."

The company will set up another such project at the environment ministry premises, next week. The proposed capacity here would be about 90,000,00 cubic metres of water annually.

"The level of groundwater is decreasing by 51 cm annually which is not a good sign for our State .There are chances of facing chronic water scarcity situation in the next 25-30 years and so such initiatives should be welcomed. To maintain water sustainability, it is very crucial that we capture and direct as much rain water as possible into the ground to ensure that the underground water bank is increased to meet our present and future demands," added Singh.

Coca Cola has so far created fresh annual groundwater recharge potential of over 11, 708 cubic metres in Varanasi alone.

The World Environment Foundation recently conferred 'Special Commendation of Golden Peacock Award for Environment Management, 2006' to Mehandiganj Bottling Operations.