United colas of India

Exactly as they did the last time round three years ago, the cola companies have refused to accept the findings of the Centre for Science and Environment's (CSE's) tests of 57 soft drink samples (of 11 soft drink brands), which show that they continue to have unacceptably high levels of pesticide residues, in some cases over 30 times the standards that the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) arrived at following the original cola controversy""standards that were never notified. While the stand taken by the cola companies is along expected lines, the real culprit in the story is not the companies (guilty enough though they may be), but a government that continues to play ducks and drakes with public health. After the first CSE report was discussed by a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC), it was found that there were no specific product safety standards for colas, so the BIS was asked to examine the issue and come up with such standards. It is not important to go into the stalling tactics that the CSE alleges took place to delay the setting of such standards, which necessitated a whole series to tests to see (for instance) if the pesticide residues came from the sugar used in the soft drinks""the tests showed sugar was not the culprit, according to the CSE. But what is important is that by March this year, the BIS finalised the standards. Yet, for whatever reason, the standards simply did not get notified""indeed, when the CSE alleges the pesticide levels are higher than the BIS standards, what it means is the finalised-but-not-notified BIS standards.

What is worse, and this applies not just to soft drinks but to all foodstuffs, is that Parliament has just passed the Food Safety and Standards Bill, which further dilutes any action that can possibly be contemplated against companies whose products violate health standards, as and when they are fixed. The food safety legislation does this through a curious overlapping of definitions of "residues", "contaminants", "extraneous matter", and "sub-standard food". So, if there is something in the food/drink that is potentially unsafe, like the pesticide residues that the CSE's tests say were found in the cold drinks they tested, what will decide the action to be taken is whether the pesticide residue is a "contaminant", whether it is "extraneous", or "sub-standard". If it is "extraneous", the Section that describes "extraneous" says the food is not unsafe to consume; yet the definition of "unsafe" food describes this as food that contains "extraneous" matter!

The Bill is so full of such contradictions that it makes it near-impossible to ever take action against a company whose products are found to be unsafe/unhealthy. So, even if the BIS does notify the standards that the CSE alleges it has not done owing to political pressure, the food companies will always be able to argue their way around the problem by using the contradictory definitions in the food safety legislation. What is even more galling is that the same food companies immediately withdraw batches of water/drinks in other countries when the authorities there suspect a problem ""in India, the presence of such reports doesn't spur the industry to do anything except increase its spending on film stars who rubbish test reports.