The pesticide is the point

Down To Earth

 In February 2003, the Centre for Science and Environment released a study on pesticide residues in bottled water being sold in the market. We reported how we found legalised pesticides in bottled water. In other words, the norms for regulating pesticide levels in these bottles were so designed that pesticide residues would not be detected.

 We had no intentions of following up this study with investigations in other products. Then people wrote to us from across the country. They wanted to know: if what we had to say about the bottled water industry was correct, then what about soft drink manufacturers? After all, they all used water as a raw material. They also sourced their water largely from groundwater. We had, they said, a responsibility to tell.

 By May, it was also evident that government was prevaricating on legislating the amended, stringent norms for bottled water. Industry pressure, we were told by wags, was enormous. Stakes were high.

 Most of the big players in the bottled water industry, we knew, had the capability to treat and clean the water. They also catered to hapless consumers with little choice but to pay more for water, than for milk. Municipal supplies were unreliable. Theirs was a thriving business. Nothing, not even a little pesticide, would hold it back. Then why the opposition?

 Could it be that the stakes were even higher than we had imagined? Suppose, what was really at stake was not the bottled water industry and its Rs 1,000-crore business, but the soft drink industry and its estimated Rs 6,000 to Rs 7,000-crore business. Indians drink on an average 6.6 billion bottles of soft drinks each year and business is flourishing.

 We were surprised by what we found. All bottles of soft drinks analysed at the Centre