Tuesday, July 03, 2007

hindustan lever, a multinational group involved in everything that you can dream of right from coffee onto soaps onto beauty products onto detergents onto ice creams onto wheat products onto nutrition items onito whatever you can dream of and whatever you are using.

but the same hindustan lever limited, now hindustan unilever limited hid many important and damaging information about its thermometer factory in the crucial kodaikanal hill station. worst of all, after the factory was closed due to environmental and health hazards, the company cared a hoot about the workers whom it had abused by making them in hazardous and dangerous conditions.

it took dogged persistence from the ex-workers of the factory to pursue the company to take care of the damage to their health and the high court has now intervened and formed an expert committee to analyse the health conditions of the ex workers.

corporate india talks about social responsibility, community development and sustainability at the drop of the hat. but when it comes to real life, like this hindustan lever thermometer factory fiasco shows, they act exactly in the opposite direction. after all wall street, financial analysts and industrial captains are concerned only on profits and money and nothing else.

(a notice board in the closed hindustan lever thermometer factory in kodaikanal. development gone amiss)
(mercury pollution in kodai area near the factory caused huge health issues not only to factory workers but also those who had coffee plantations and people living nearby. above picture from tehelka shows mercury being treated without proper care when the factory was functioning)

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