Govt must issue final notification on soft drinks standards: CSE

New Delhi, Mar 15 (UNI) The Centre for Science and Environment today said government must notify the total amount of pesticides allowed in soft drinks.

''Otherwise, it will negate the effort to regulate soft drinks and make it completely useless,'' a CSE statement said.

While welcoming the report of a government expert committee which recommended a standard to regulate soft drinks, CSE urged the need to mandate the standards so that safety was not compromised.

The panel recommended limits for individual pesticides but stopped short of prescribing a limit for total pesticide residues in soft drinks -- a move which CSE criticised.

''The individual pesticide maximum residue level of one part per billion in carbonated water recommended by the committee is ten times the limit that the Bureau of Indian Standards has finalised.

And the committee has erred by not fixing a limit for total pesticides in soft drinks. This will make regulating difficult, if not completely impossible,'' CSE Associate Director Chandra Bhushan said.

The BIS had, in March 2006, finalised a standard for soft drinks for individual pesticides at 0.1 ppb and total pesticides at 0.5 ppb.

The panel's report had based its recommendations on a public health risk assessement of soft drinks based on the concept of how much of these drinks we consume, he said.

As soft drinks were not part of the daily diet -- which meant that these products were not essential -- it was also important that standards should be set using the criterion of total safety in our food, Mr Bhushan said.

The expert committee, chaired by Indian Council of Medical Research Director General N K Ganguly, was set up in the wake of the study conducted by CSE on pesticide residues in soft drinks, to finalise standards for these drinks. The committee's report, made public today, put to rest this issue.

This now paved the way for union health ministry to set up a mandatory final product standard for pesticide residues in soft drinks.

''This is a logical next step in our four-year long fight. In 2004, the Joint Parliamentary Committee had endorsed our findings and directed for a final product standard. Now the health ministry committee has concluded that these products need to be regulated for public health purposes and therefore, a final product standard is a must,'' CSE Director Sunita Narain said.

UNI