Rain showers concerns about bottled water

With the monsoon has come a spell of concerns over the safety of drinking water — a fair share of which is packaged drinking water supplied in 20-litre jars to apartment-dwellers in cities such as Kochi.

Kerala’s 130 licensed packaged drinking water manufacturers together deliver about five-lakh litres of water in 20,000 jars across the State’s households every day, but unauthorised bulk supply of drinking water is said to be rampant.

“Licensed bottled drinking water manufacturers are required to adhere to 52 parameters stipulated by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) for water safety, but we have come across unauthorised people bottling water in 20-litre jars locally for supply at reduced rates,” says M.E. Mohammed, president of Kerala Bottled Water Manufacturers’ Association, a body that also comprises some pan-India players with bottling facility in the State.

Mr. Mohammed says while the association has often taken up the issue of illegal bulk supply of packaged water with the State’s food safety commissionerate, the response has not been quite encouraging.

“Regular surveillance and sampling is going on. Sample details are available in three labs,” Food Safety Commissioner T.V. Anupama says in a message, choosing not to respond to queries on action taken to curb unauthorised supply of bottled drinking water.

As for the organised bunch of licensed bottled water manufacturers, there’s hardly any room for compromise on the quality of water, insists P.S. Harikumar, head of water quality division at the Centre for Water Resources Development and Management. “They are required to renew their licence every year when exhaustive tests are conducted by BIS. Besides, individual batches need testing in accredited labs. Of the 20 or so samples we have tested on demand, almost all follow the standards, perhaps the singular irregularity being sale of bottles past their use-by date,” he says.

The onset of monsoon has brought about a dip in the sale of one-litre, two-litre and five-litre bottles while there has been a marginal increase in demand for the 20-litre jar, especially from housing societies and apartments.

In the smaller-volume segments, organised players in Kerala are competing with licensees from outside with a strong distribution network in the State.

Two and five-litre bottles are not much in demand, but the one-litre segment sells about six lakh bottles in Kerala every day, with brands assembled under the association accounting for half of the total volume of sales.

Licensed manufacturers deliver five-lakh litres of packaged water across the State every day.