NEW DELHI, 24 September — The Supreme Court yesterday slapped a hefty fine on the Himachal Pradesh state government for failing to curb damage to the environment caused by Indian and foreign firms including US soft drink giants Coca-Cola and Pepsi painting adverts on eco-fragile rockfaces.
A three-judge bench of the court including Chief Justice B.N. Kirpal ordered the state government to pay up Rs10 million ($208,000.
The money will go toward repairing the environmental damage.
“It is the duty of the state government to protect the environment and for dereliction of this duty Rs10 million will be deposited by Himachal Pradesh to meet the expenses of restoration,” the court said.
The court also issued notices to the government in southern Karnataka state and a number of firms for similar adverts in and around the state capital Bangalore.
“It is unfortunate that such large-scale vandalism has been taking place with state governments taking no action to check it,” the court said.
It asked the Ministry of Environment and Forests to file an affidavit within three days detailing similar vandalism, if any, detected in other parts of the country. The bench will take up the matter again on Thursday.
Among the 12 companies found to have painted adverts on rocks in the northern Indian state are US soft drink giants Coca-Cola and Pepsi.
The 10 other companies include Malhotra Book Depot, Fena Detergent, Birla White Cement, State Bank of India, Sleepwell Mattresses, Nestle India Ltd and Annapurna Hotels.
The advertisements were painted on mossy rocks teeming with micro-organisms, along a 55-km stretch of highway on the spectacular Manali-Rohtang pass in Himachal Pradesh.
Last week, the Supreme Court fined PepsiCo India and Coca-Cola India Rs200,000 each and ordered them to pay Rs100,000 each toward the cost of repairing the damage.
The court had also directed a committee set up to report on the damage to shoot a video of the area to assess how much work needed to be done.
The Supreme Court had issued notices to the two soft drink giants after being alerted by a newspaper report last month, which said the advertisements had put at risk the ecosystem of the mossy rocks teeming with micro-organisms.
Both multinationals had earlier claimed the paintings were done by local franchisees without their knowledge and that they were taking steps to rectify the damage.
