Pune: Officials of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have taken action against 12 packaged drinking water plants operating without licences in 2017.
Seven plants in the Pune division were shut down. Four facilities were sealed in Solapur and one in Kolhapur. "We have shut down the illegal plants after issuing prohibitory orders," the joint commissioner (food) of FDA in the Pune division, S S Sawant, said.
Licences from the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) and the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) are essential for running a packaged drinking water plant.
"There are 810 plants in Maharashtra that have requisite licences and the necessary water testing facilities. However, there are nearly 1,700 illegal mineral water bottling plants," the president of the Maharashtra Association of Bottled Water Manufacturers, Vijaysinh Dubbal, told TOI.
Most illegal plants are located in Thane, Aurangabad, Nashik, Nagpur and Pune, Dubbal added.
While proprietors of standard mineral water processing plants invest around Rs 70 lakh on their bottling units, owners of illegal plants invest only Rs 2 lakh.
"The demand for packaged water is so high," a restaurant owner added, "that it hardly matters whether the bottles are certified or not."
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