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'Revised norms for bottled water not adequate'

By P. Sunderarajan

NEW DELHI March 27. There appears to be no early end to the controversy over bottled drinking water with an experts' committee finding that the proposed revision in the standards, which was envisaged to come into effect from April 1, was not adequate.

In a report presented to the Union Consumer Affairs Minister, Sharad Yadav, the panel contended that the provision that water samples be analysed "using internationally established test methods" was too vague and could lead to a lot of confusion, as it left the choice of method to the testing laboratory.

The panel, headed by the Additional Secretary in the Consumer Affairs Ministry, Satwant Reddy, said that the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) should set up a technical committee to come out with a specific testing method to be uniformly followed by all laboratories.

The panel, it said, should consist of experts from leading research institutions such as the Central Pollution Control Board, the National Institute of Nutrition, the Central Food Technology Research Institute, the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute and the IITs.

The Reddy panel pointed out that in developed countries, there was only one standard for drinking water, irrespective of whether it was supplied through municipal pipeline or sold in bottles, and said that it was time the Government and municipal authorities geared up to improve the quality of water supply.

In addition, it called for a review of permissible limits for pesticide and other contaminants in other food products such as milk, vegetables, fruits and foodgrain and urged the BIS to set up a permanent core group of scientists to keep track of scientific and technical developments in key areas so that the standards were updated on a continuous basis. Among other things, it stressed the need to give wide publicity for proposals for new standards or revisions to provide for greater transparency and to address the problems being faced by consumer organisations in participating in the meetings of its technical committees. Currently, since standards formulation is considered a voluntary activity, there is no provision for payment of even travel allowance to members of the committees who belonged to voluntary agencies.

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