Firm says it discontinued use of lead-based pigments in paints a year ago
Berger Paints has objected to the finding of the Quality Council of India (QCI) that its paints contain unacceptable amount of lead. The company said it was neither contacted by the National Referral Centre on Lead Poisoning in India (NRCLPI) or QCI and had, in fact, discontinued the use of lead-based pigments in paints since December 2009.
A recent analysis of popular branded paints by QCI, the officially-sanctioned accreditation authority, in association with the Consumer Association of India (CAI), revealed unacceptable amount of lead in Berger’s paints. The study was funded by QCI, with technical support from National Referral Centre on Lead Poisoning in India (NRCLPI). The paints were tested at Bangalore Analytical Research Centre (P) Ltd, one of the vetted labs by the National Accreditation Board for Laboratories (NABL). Lead is essentially used to enhance the shine.
Business Standard had published a report on the survey’s findings on January 5. The survey was conducted in October and the report was out on November 10.
Thuppil Venkatesh, principal advisor, QCI and NRCLPI, said: “We sent Berger Paints a letter in July 2010, raising concerns about the amount of lead present in their paint samples, but it never responded. It did not even reply to the fax sent to them several times.”
NRCLPI maintains it has original containers with the exact date of production and records of the exact date on which the letters were sent to paint manufacturers. NRCLPI and QCI claim paint samples were procured from hardware shops in Bangalore and date and shop details were maintained at NRCLPI. Berger Paints’ samples were reportedly of Batch 2008. NRCLPI also says samples were coded before sending them for analysis and the process was unbiased.
QCI says it did try to contact all paint companies, including Berger, to take initiative to reduce lead in their paints after the recent survey. It even claims that it had conducted a multi-stakeholder brainstorming with the Karnataka Paints Association about two years back, when letters were sent to all major companies, including Berger, but the company never bothered to reply or attend to any of such initiatives.
Meanwhile, Berger suspects the materials tested by QCI are spurious, as it had become lead-free since December 2009. Also, it is skeptical about the date of test.
Berger Paints Senior Vice-President (Sales & Marketing) Abhijit Roy said: “Since December 2009, we have stopped using lead-based pigments in our paints. We did it much before the concern was raised by QCI. Our lead content is about 25-30 parts per million (ppm), which is much lower than the global standards, that is 60 ppm.”
QCI Secretary-General Girdhar J Gyani said: “This is really strange that instead of realising the kind of harm it is causing to the health of innumerable people, the company is making tall claims and challenging our survey.”
“Berger should have taken off all its old batch paints from the market to ensure health safety of people buying it ignorantly. It could have advertised it loud enough that the company was going lead-free from December 2009 and, hence, people should abandon using paints of old batch that had heavy lead content. They have recently started promoting ‘No daag, no dhabba’ campaign, why could they not advertise about such developments then? They should have at least mentioned on those containers about the lead content in paints to make people aware,” Gyani said.
Roy said: “If the containers were of 2008, I would like to ask QCI which company didn’t use lead at that time. Other companies also used lead in their paints in 2008. How am I supposed to know if any retailer in some odd area is using batch 2008 paint in 2010? It is his property. QCI cannot single out one company against others. This would certainly call for a legal intervention.”
“No one was advertising about lead at that time, so why only we are blamed for not advertising it. QCI must re-conduct this survey of our contemporary batch paints. They would certainly be lead-free.”
Gyani said Berger could not wash its hands of the issue by blaming other companies. The lead content was much high in their samples, up to 200 per cent more than what is acceptable.
“We can again conduct a test in the company’s presence, but it would again be a random selection and not on the recommendations of the company. If Berger is found lead-free, we would be more than happy to advertise it again in the media,” he said.
“Rather than beating about the bush by putting false allegations on us, they should come up with evidence to prove them lead-free. We are not obliged to speak to them. Instead, they should be confirming to us whether they have discontinued or still continue to use use lead in their paints,” Gyani said.
