Low ease of doing business has cost Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency, Varanasi, a manufacturing line of Coca Cola’s largest bottling partner in India. The company, Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages, is setting up the planned investment at another location in Uttar Pradesh after inordinate delay in getting a no objection certificate (NOC).
The Rs. 145-crore new line for manufacturing 600 bottles per minute would have created 350 jobs in Varanasi. A company official told The Hindu that the investment would now be made at Unnao, Kanpur or Dasna.
“Hindustan Coca-Cola has taken the decision to move the proposed new PET line away from the Varanasi plant and re-locate it somewhere in Uttar Pradesh… We will continue to operate the existing Returnable Glass Bottle line, as we have been doing for the last 15 years,” a company spokesperson said.
The delay in the NOC from the Delhi-based Central Ground Water Authority (CGWA) had led to financial losses, the company said.
