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State plans steps against contaminated bottled water

By Our Staff Reporter

KOCHI FEB. 6. The Food and Consumer Affairs Minister, G. Karthikeyan, has said the Government would take stern action against companies marketing bottled water if the product they sell in State was found to be contaminated.

Mr. Karthikeyan told The Hindu that since it was a consumer welfare issue, his department would take the initiative to check the sale of contaminated packaged water. Asked if the Government would order a probe to find out whether the water supplied in bottles was contaminated, Mr. Karthikeyan said he had discussed the issue with the Chief Minister. In consultation with the Health Minister, a decision would be taken shortly, he said.

The Minister was reacting to an expose by an NGO of pesticide contamination of bottled drinking water sold in Delhi and Mumbai by major multinational and Indian companies. The Central Government, swiftly acting upon the expose, has announced an investigation and set up a high-level committee to study the issue.

The State Government is worried that many of the brands, whose samples had been found to be contaminated, are widely sold in Kerala. These brands include `Aquaplus' sold extensively at railway stations and on trains; `Bisleri' and `Bailley' manufactured by Parle; Coca Cola's `Kinley' and Pepsico's `Aquafina.'

Mr. Karthikeyan noted that consumption of drinking water had increased tremendously in Kerala recently because of growing consumerism. Since the contamination would affect public health, as the Minister in charge of consumer affairs, he was taking the issue seriously.

A Delhi-based NGO, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), had recently found that most of the bottled-water companies in Delhi and Mumbai regions supplied pesticide-contaminated water. Many of these companies also supply bottled water to the rest of the country, including Kerala.

CSE's Pollution Monitoring Laboratory had, after a six-month-long chemical analysis of water samples of 30 brands, found that they were unfit for human consumption. The bottled water contained heavy doses of residues of an average of five pesticides which could cause serious health hazards.

The analysis found that the top-seller of bottled water in the country, `Bisleri', was the third worst brand among Delhi region's 17 brands which were tested for pesticide contamination. Bisleri's pesticide concentration level was 79 times more than the limits set by the European Economic Community standards. However, `Aquaplus' which is mostly sold at railway stations, contained 104 times more pesticide residues than permitted by the EEC. The Coca Cola-made `Kinley' contained 14.6 times more than the norms. On an average, the 17 samples from Delhi region contained 36.4 times the permitted pesticide residues. Contamination was relatively low in water samples from Mumbai.

Some samples contained the organochlorine Endosulphan too.

According to the laboratory, the high level of pesticide residues came from the contaminated groundwater that was used. The CSE teams had inspected water sources as well as manufacturing facilities of some of the brands, though many had refused to let them in. They found many of the plants were located in dirty areas and even agricultural fields. The water treatment and `purification' processes were grossly inadequate or non-existent.

The CSE said its lab had to use EEC norms--which are followed in Europe--because the Bureau of Indian Standards' norms for pesticide residue were `vague and undefined.' The samples were tested with a methodology approved by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of the U.S.

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