This year, villages in Paithan district, neighbouring Aurangabad in Maharashtra, received 40% less rain than usual. Still, the farmers there did just fine.
Some of them even did better, planting not one but two crops, and going beyond staples to start growing fruits like sweet lime and mango. Water is less of a worry now because of PepsiCo India. The beverage major is trying to make up for the water-guzzling tendencies of its Aurangabad plant through various initiatives to replenish the ground water in the region.
In 2010, eight years after it set up its Aurangabad plant, PepsiCo partnered a civil society organisation, Alternative Development Initiatives, to recharge ground water in vulnerable villages of the region. It built 13 check dams and recharged over 100 wells, at a cost of Rs 50 lakh, in places where the water shortage goes back 20 years.
Rameshwar Bobade, a resident of one such vulnerable village, represents the change. The 48-year-old from Wahegaon was a farm labourer till 2009. Today, Bobade can irrigate his 10,000 sq ft plot, which has rose bushes, a sweet lime orchard and garlic pods. "There is water in my bore well because of the dam," he says. "I was earning Rs 100 a day as a labourer. Today, my monthly profits are Rs 3,000-5,000 per month."
PepsiCo is a rare Indian company engaging with water. Besides Aurangabad, the company has water-replenishment projects in three other plants, in Neelamangala, Panipat and Sangareddy. "India is the first country where PepsiCo has achieved a positive water balance," says Annie Kishen, head, CSR, PepsiCo India, making a case for the company to be seen as a responsible corporate citizen.
But this term, positive water balance, has become a flashpoint between companies doing water replenishment and environmentalists. Companies define water positive as putting more water back into the ground than what their factories draw. Pepsi says it became water-positive in 2009. Likewise, Coca-Cola says it did so in 2010.
Chandra Bhushan of the Center for Science and Environment says this is a narrow, and incomplete, a definition of water conservation. The CSE deputy director general points out that some industries discharge as much water as they use. For example, power, the largest industrial user of water, discharges 87% of the water it used in 2008-09. Bhushan says a positive water balance is when a plant has zero discharge, every drop is recycled, and that every plant should be like that.
India is far from it. Select companies like PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Hindustan Unilever, Mahindra and Mahindra, ITC, Hindalco, Tata Group and Ambuja Cement do put back water into communities they draw from. But, says environmentalist Debi Goenka, their initiatives tend to revolve around water conservation, rain-water harvesting, recovery and renewal.
Recycling comes lower down. "If industry was serious about being water positive, recycling would have been on top of their priority list, says Goenka, executive trustee, Conservation Action Trust. "I can't think of a single industry that is water positive."
SOURCE
Some of them even did better, planting not one but two crops, and going beyond staples to start growing fruits like sweet lime and mango. Water is less of a worry now because of PepsiCo India. The beverage major is trying to make up for the water-guzzling tendencies of its Aurangabad plant through various initiatives to replenish the ground water in the region.
In 2010, eight years after it set up its Aurangabad plant, PepsiCo partnered a civil society organisation, Alternative Development Initiatives, to recharge ground water in vulnerable villages of the region. It built 13 check dams and recharged over 100 wells, at a cost of Rs 50 lakh, in places where the water shortage goes back 20 years.
Rameshwar Bobade, a resident of one such vulnerable village, represents the change. The 48-year-old from Wahegaon was a farm labourer till 2009. Today, Bobade can irrigate his 10,000 sq ft plot, which has rose bushes, a sweet lime orchard and garlic pods. "There is water in my bore well because of the dam," he says. "I was earning Rs 100 a day as a labourer. Today, my monthly profits are Rs 3,000-5,000 per month."
PepsiCo is a rare Indian company engaging with water. Besides Aurangabad, the company has water-replenishment projects in three other plants, in Neelamangala, Panipat and Sangareddy. "India is the first country where PepsiCo has achieved a positive water balance," says Annie Kishen, head, CSR, PepsiCo India, making a case for the company to be seen as a responsible corporate citizen.
But this term, positive water balance, has become a flashpoint between companies doing water replenishment and environmentalists. Companies define water positive as putting more water back into the ground than what their factories draw. Pepsi says it became water-positive in 2009. Likewise, Coca-Cola says it did so in 2010.
Chandra Bhushan of the Center for Science and Environment says this is a narrow, and incomplete, a definition of water conservation. The CSE deputy director general points out that some industries discharge as much water as they use. For example, power, the largest industrial user of water, discharges 87% of the water it used in 2008-09. Bhushan says a positive water balance is when a plant has zero discharge, every drop is recycled, and that every plant should be like that.
India is far from it. Select companies like PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Hindustan Unilever, Mahindra and Mahindra, ITC, Hindalco, Tata Group and Ambuja Cement do put back water into communities they draw from. But, says environmentalist Debi Goenka, their initiatives tend to revolve around water conservation, rain-water harvesting, recovery and renewal.
Recycling comes lower down. "If industry was serious about being water positive, recycling would have been on top of their priority list, says Goenka, executive trustee, Conservation Action Trust. "I can't think of a single industry that is water positive."
SOURCE
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