NEW DELHI, INDIA, February 12, 2003 : Following a recent controversy where a NGO, the Center for Science and Environment, found detectable levels of pesticide residues in some of India’s leading brands of packaged water, India’s health ministry has decided to bring amendments to the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act (PFA). The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) regulations now state that the content of any single pesticide in water should not exceed 0.0001 milligram per liter, total content of pesticides should not be more than 0.0005 milligram per liter and testing methods to be used by the industry would be prescribed by the BIS. However, they added that it might take some time for the final notification to come through as the bottled water industry would be given time to respond to the draft and also to make the necessary technological changes for the testing. Previous to this, the PFA Act had been vague on the issue of pesticide levels saying only they should be “below detectable limits.”
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