HCCB Works Overtime To Ensure Availability Of Clean Drinking Water For The Community To Tide Over The Aftermath Of The Cyclone

20 Jun 2019 01:27 AM

Cyclone Fani was one of the worst cyclones to hit India’s eastern coastline since Phailin in 2013. As local administrations and government authorities in Odisha geared up to brace themselves to meet the fury of the cyclone and minimize the consequences, more than a million people were evacuated into 9,000 shelters within 24 hours. There were few corporates who were trying to work in their own way to minimize the large scale destruction that was set to be caused by the destruction.

Gusty winds with speed reaching up to 220 kmph lashed the coastal area of Puri as the cyclone moved close to north coastal Andhra before it made landfall in neighbouring Odisha. As the storm raged across coastal Odisha, leaving over 500,000 people homeless and displaced, it also wiped out infrastructure such as electricity, telecom and basic necessities for people across the state. The impact has been so severe that the state is still recuperating to rebuild itself in the aftermath.

The non-availability of drinking water was one of the biggest challenges for the people as lack of power supply left water pumps defunct and the water available in local markets was mostly contaminated with debris and rendered unfit for drinking.

As soon as the government sounded a high alert across the state, various organizations such as Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages, which has one of its production factory in Khurda, geared up towards activating a contingency plan to make sure water was available to the community in the vicinity. Despite all preemptive measures, the HCCB factory was forced to shut down during the first 24 hours as power supply snapped.

For the community in the areas surrounding the factory, drinking water and basic amenities were in short supply. The factory had to run if it was to provide drinking water to people nearby. With factory infrastructure heavily damaged, the factory started working overtime to make urgent repairs.

While one team tried to address the challenge of connectivity, another was trying to make sure water was made available to the community in the vicinity as quickly as possible. Soon after, HCCB was able to distribute 59,250 litres of water to local communities with adequate support from the District Fire Services Department, CESU, CII, IPICOL and various other NGOs. HCCB employees also volunteered in relief operations to ensure clean drinking water was made available to as many people possible.

“The local communities’ most urgent needs were attended to with clean drinking water. The cyclone caused a massive breakdown in power supply and mobile phone connectivity which caused major disruption and confusion during relief distribution, however, we were able to quickly assess the situation and complete urgent repair work in the factory to respond to the need of the hour – accessibility of clean drinking water to the immediate community.” HCCB Factory Manager Joydeep Roy said.

About HCCB

HCCB is one of India’s largest FMCG companies. It manufactures, packages and sells, some of India’s most loved beverages – Minute Maid, Maaza, SmartWater, Kinley, Thums Up, Sprite, Coca-Cola, Limca, Fanta, Georgia and several others. A network of 3,900 distributors, 250,000 farmers, 7,000 suppliers and over 2 million retail outlets, makes HCCB, an ecosystem of significant scale. It operates in 25 states in 493 districts. Through its 18 factories, HCCB manufactures and sells 55 different products in 9 different categories.

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