Local body resumes licence for Coke plant

The temporary lincence for the embattled Coca Cola plant was renewed complying with a 2005 Kerala HC order.

The Perumatti panchayat near here has once again renewed the temporary lincence for the embattled Coca Cola plant in the district, complying with a 2005 Kerala High Court order.

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As it had done on previous occasions, the licence for the plant was renewed for antoher three months with several stringent conditions attached to it, the panchayat sources said on Thursday.

Though the plant had been virtually disfunctional for the last few years in the backdrop of legal battles and agitations by anti-Cola resistance groups, the company had been getting its licence renewed every three months on the strength of last year's High Court order, that directed the local body to consider the company's request.

The state government and the panchayat had gone in appeal to the Supreme Court against the High Court order.

The conditions attached to renewal of licence included production of a certificate on the safety of the products from a central laboratory.