Plachimada strike enters sixth year

Palakkad, Apr 22: The struggle against the Plachimada Plant of Coca Cola here entered the sixth year today with the ''Anti-Coca Cola Agitation Committee'' and the Solidarity Committee commencing a 48-hour hunger strike in front of the factory.

The strike has been called against the Government for not fullfilling its promise on the Coca Cola factory and its delay in taking action against it.

The agitating leaders said social activist Medha Patkar would be in Plachimada on April 24 and she would declare a pledge against fighting the Cola giants.

Though the Cola company here had stopped functioning for the last four years, the protesters demanded that the factory be shifted from Plachimada and also provide compensation to those, who had suffered on account of the factory.

Mainly the adivasis, particularly women and children, launched the agitation on April 22, 2002 with a symbolic blockade and continous dharna.

The company was established in 1998-99 on a 40-acre plot at Plachimada in Perumatty Panchayat in Chittur taluk of this District.

UNI