Cola norms by the yearend, says govt

NEW DELHI: Union Health Secretary PK Hota said on Thursday that new Prevention of Food Adulteration (PFA) norms to fix the maximum residue level (MRL) of pesticides in cold drinks will be notified by the yearend.

The norms are being prepared by an expert team. “It’s a complex process,” Hota said. “All stakeholders, including nine ministries and the manufacturers, are being taken into account. We are also looking at world norms.”

There are international norms on MRLs for all food products and beverages, including wine and alcohol, but none for carbonated water. Hence, cola companies worldwide are guided by MRL norms for packaged drinking water.

The Joint Parliamentary Committee set up in 2003 had noted that despite water being the major constituent of soft drinks the PFA and Food Products Order (FPO) do not lay down sufficient standards.

Even the voluntary specification of the Bureau of Indian Standards for carbonated beverages, which says water quality standard in manufacturing soft drinks should be equal to that of processed food industry, does not mention pesticides.

A health ministry official said a draft notification to regulate pesticide limits in soft drinks had been submitted in 2003 but was withdrawn as the JPC was already framing guidelines. A technical committee was constituted after the JPC’s recommendations. The Centre for Science and Environment’s Sunita Narain is a member of the committee.

The technical committee believes the norms should be decided unanimously by manufacturers and regulators. “There are 42 issues on the list of which there are differences only on two - caffeine and pesticide levels. But these are the crucial points on which unanimity in needed,” a senior official of the Union consumer affairs ministry, which is responsible for BIS norms, said.

The official highlighted another problem - lack of implementation. Though the BIS has had norms for carbonated water (not including pesticide levels) in place since 1963, they have not been adopted by the industry. “The adoption of norms has to be voluntary. But since 1963 not a single application for licence has come from carbonated drinks manufacturers. There are 18,000 BIS norms for various things, but half of them are not used.”