Multinational soft-drink giant Coca-Cola is planning to set up a tender coconut water production and marketing facility at its existing factory premises in Palakkad district of Kerala, according to the company's vice president Deepak Mehrotra.

The company is currently looking at an assortment of technologies that can ensure a reasonably long shelf life for this nutritious and thirst quenching health drink.

Once the technology is finalized, the size of investment and other logistics would be worked out, he added.

Claiming that tender coconut water is currently the healthiest soft drink in the world, a Coconut Board official said the proposed project is expected to significantly boost Coke's bottomline as currently there is heavy demand for this product but only one producer of coconut water concentrate in the country.

"Besides generating a large number of jobs, the proposed unit would also help the coconut farmers in Kerala by fetching them good prices for their produce," he added.

An Indo-German venture Miracle Food Processors International Ltd, which is also based in Kerala, is currently India's sole producer of coconut water concentrate.

Miracle, also manufactures and markets its own dispensing machines for supplying diluted tender coconut water from the concentrate in 150 ml disposable glasses and pet bottles.

Due to the many benefits the proposed tender coconut water project is envisaged to generate, it may help Coke to counter the criticism and opposition that its Palakkad unit is currently facing from the local populace.

Lately, the villagers and local politicians in Palakkad have been accusing the Coke bottling plant in Palakkad for depleting and polluting the drinking water resources in about 10 km radius around its factory, thus damaging the ecology.

Nearly 1,000 families, mainly tribals of the area, have been demanding that the company should close down its factory without further delay.

In June 2002, they had also resorted to a month-long agitation and sat on satyagraha in front of the multinational factory.

In support of this agitators, the Opposition leader V S Achuthanandan has said that the Coke factory has been extracting excess water and that should be stopped at any cost.