For reasons best known only to Union Health Minister Ramadoss, the govt seems reluctant to move decisively on the pesticola row.
TEAM DNA
MUMBAI: For reasons best known only to Union Health Minister Ambumani Ramadoss, the government seems reluctant to move decisively on the pesticola controversy.
Ramadoss says the central government does not have the jurisdiction to intervene on this issue, pointing at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in different states for action.
The FDA has its own stories. For instance, the Maharashtra FDA says it has collected a few more samples on Friday and is awaiting the results of tests that it has ordered. Joint Commissioner (Food) R U Konnur says: "The FDA intends to test samples from bottling units of the two cola makers, Super Drinks and Indo-Europe Beverages in Mumbai, Thane, Pune, Nashik, Aurangabad, Raigad and Nagpur. The government can consider a report from a notified laboratory alone as authentic."
But all this inaction is leading to frustration among consumer activists. Arguing for a ban on colas, Mumbai Grahak Panchayat Vice-Chairperson Shirish Deshpande says: "Any pesticide consumed through soft drinks cannot be tolerated. The safety of the consumer is non-negotiable."
But FDA authorities say they can't do anything till the standards stipulated by the Bureau of India Standards are given the status of law. For the record the BIS norms are yet to be notified.
The FDA also claims there are no clear rules for cola manufacturers to follow. When the CSE had made public a similar study three years ago, stringent regulations on cola companies were proposed. But none came into force.
"We had collected close to 200 samples, 53 of them specifically for checking pesticide residue in August 2003 when the CSE had released their first report," says Konnur.
But several scientists like RK Khandal question the methodology used by the CSE. Khandal, who is the director of the Sriram Institute of Industrial Research, one of the 20 laboratories accredited to NABL, says: "CSE has used what is called the 'EPA' protocol, which is meant to test only water and not soft drinks.
Some pesticides CSE claims to have found in soft drink samples - melathion and chlorpyriphof - are organo-phosphorous pesticides, known to degrade in water. Their presence in the samples is just not possible since they would have degraded over time."
"Detection of such levels of residues first needs precision studies. Precision studies require two researchers in two different labs to conduct independent studies to validate the presence of any contaminant in such low levels. Was this done by CSE?" he asks.
Ramesh Chauhan, who owns Parle Bisleri, says since bottled water is free of pesticides, as it conforms to BIS standards, the contaminants have to be other ingredients. Besides water, other ingredients are sugar and concentrate.
"Fanta has 30-40 per cent higher sugar content than Coca-Cola, but does not show higher pesticide levels compared to Coke. Obviously then, sugar is also not the reason for pesticides in soft drinks. This leaves only the concentrate. The govt should ask soft drink companies for concentrate samples to test," he says.
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