Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has now included standards for spring water in the Food Safety and Standards Regulations, 2011, categorized as mineral water. As per the draft, notification is drawn by the food regulators, standards have been covered in the clause titled ‘Description and Types of Mineral Water’.
The draft notification further describes spring water as a fluid which obtained from the natural resources and is derived from an underground formation.
“Spring water shall be collected only at the spring or through a borehole tapping the underground formation feeding the spring. There shall be a natural force causing the water to flow to the surface through an orifice,” it added.
According to the draft notification, “Spring water should conform to all the standards for mineral water, except the total dissolved solids (TDS) content, which shall not be more than 750mg/litre.”
Stating that it would be too premature to comment of the permissible TDS limit, Ashwin Bhadri, chief executive officer, Equinox Labs said, “The permissible limit of TDS in drinking water is 500 parts per million (ppm) as per the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), whose certification validates the source and quality of water.”
“However, here lies the cliche - in case there is no other source of water available, the highest permissible limit can be 2,000 ppm. Apart from this, the BIS document such side effects as the decrease in the palatability, which may cause gastrointestinal irritation,” he added.
“Thus, spring water can be an excellent replacement in case there is no other source of water, which is often the case in the interiors of the country,” Bhadri stated.
He added, “There is a provision for packaged natural mineral water, which was mandated on March 29, 2001, under the erstwhile Prevention of Food Adulteration Act (PFA), 1954. BIS certification is of extreme importance in case of using water.”
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