Packaged drinking water may after all be spurious

‘Selling such water drawn from taps in cans bearing ISI symbol amounts to cheating’

Is the packaged drinking water made available in the 20-litre cans at marriage halls and other gatherings unprocessed and spurious? Several packaged drinking water manufacturers and distributors, who had gathered for a meeting convened by the Food Safety and Standards Authority (FSSA) in Mysuru recently alleged that some unscrupulous distributors were fraudulently filling the cans with unprocessed water from taps and supplying the same to customers in the city.

Even though there is no conclusive evidence of a section of the distributors resorting to such unethical practices, the FSSA officials in Mysuru do not rule out the possibility of spurious water being supplied in the packaged drinking water cans to customers in the city. Worse, they fear that instances of such racketeering could increase in the coming summer months when demand for drinking water increases.

The packaged drinking water manufacturers and the distributors in the city expressed concern over the unethical practice bringing disrepute to their trade.

The FSSA, which has been acting against packaged drinking water units operating without obtaining the mandatory ISI symbol after obtaining licences from the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) and FSSA, will now be focussing even on the distributors.

“Such illegal practices by the distributors cannot be ruled out. We will begin inspecting the water cans being ferried by the distributors. They will have to produce the cash bills and other necessary documents to prove that the drinking water they are transporting is filtered, checked for fungal and bacterial contamination, ozonized and undergone all the other stipulated processes for packaged drinking water,” said Food Safety Officer H.N. Satish, who is also the in-charge Designated Officer for FSSA in Mysuru Rural.

By selling such non-purified water drawn from the taps or borewell in water cans bearing ISI symbol amounts to not only cheating, but could also prove to be a health hazard, leading to water-borne diseases and diarrhoea, added Food Safety Officer M.S. Lokesh, who is also the in-charge Designated Officer for FSSA in Mysuru Urban.

Some unscrupulous distributors are believed to be resorting to refilling the cans once packaged by drinking water manufacturer with water from a different unit, which is against the basic safety parameters. “It is not difficult to cover the water cans with caps readily available in the market,” he added. The FSSA has now made it mandatory for the distributors to be registered with them. “Though there are around 400 distributors in Mysuru city, barely 50 are registered with us”, Mr. Satish added.

The FSSA, which will carry out a drive against the distributors in the coming weeks, will collect samples of the water from the cans and subject the same to tests at the Food Testing Laboratory.