An employees’ union of the Kerala Water Authority (KWA) owing allegiance to the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) has opposed the move to hand over the management of the KWA’s bottled water plant at Aruvikkara in Thiruvananthapuram district to Kerala Irrigation Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd. (KIIDC).
This follows reports that the All-India Trade Union Congress too had raised objections to the move. A State government undertaking, KIIDC markets the ‘Hilly Aqua’ brand of bottled water.
M. Thampan, general secretary of the union, told the media on Thursday that the product could not be released into the market due to lack of clearance from the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) clearance. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India had earlier given its clearance.
The plant has a capacity of 7,200 litre and the plan was to produce 1.81 lakh bottles a day.
The bottles in the ‘Thelineer’ brand were to come in 500 ml, one litre, and two litre bottles and 15 litre canisters.
The earlier plan was that KWA staff themselves would run the plant. Now the proposal is to hand over the handling and operations of the plant to KIIDC.
The three-day State conference of the union, scheduled to begin in Kozhikode from February 22, would discuss the issue, he added.