NOTE: This is a general review about Bottled Water!!!
Water, one of the five sacred elements which epitomise a life!!! Its so very essential for a life to be actually called a life, that even an infant knows that! Infant of human species and for that matter of any other living species ever present on this earth!
In India, it can be argued to be a necessary evil! Reason, you can not live without it, and for living, you have contaminated and adulterated and ''treated'' water which causes plethora of diseases every year!
No longer can one trust the water from the municipal taps. Even if the water which comes through the taps is pure, we still employ certain measures to be safe and get ourselves beyond doubt. Various measures used vary from boiling water to installing UV water treaters. And when one is out of home, then one more baggage item added by default now, and that is either a bottle which is full of home-water or purchasing bottled water.
Bottled water, oflate, has come up as a very prospective business opportunity with many big players thinking it pretty seriously. Reports suggest that around 100 companies sell an estimated 500 million litres of bottled water valued at around Rs 250 crore in the country annually.
Now the marketing strategy: Almost every one claims that their water is 100 per cent bacteria-free and contains minerals that make it tastier and healthier. But is the water in these bottles really safe to drink? Do they really conform to international or national standards?
According to a market research carried out by Consumer Education and Research Society (CERS), an independent non-profit institution with a sophisticated product-testing laboratory on some major brands of bottled water available in the country. The said conformity to international standards was tested, and each brand was tested in the CERS laboratory against ''analytical'' and ''sensory'' parameters as well as for ''microbiological'' contamination.
The findings though have been grossly disturbing! Majority had foreign floating objects in clear violation of norms. None of the brands tested was free from bacteria although the consolation is that they were not of the harmful kind. Two of the big brands contained toxic heavy metals much higher than permitted levels.
The term ''mineral water'' is misleading because our laws do not stipulate the minimum mineral content level required for water to be labelled as such. All this from a sector that is flourishing because of the public fear that water supplied by civic bodies is impure.
Though the printed labels on most of the bottles claim that they are ''germ-free'' or ''100% bacteria free'' or, more simply, ''Pure & Safe'' and conforming to standards set down by various bodies like the World Health Organisation (WHO), the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS).
BISLERI CASE
Background
In 1967, Bisleri an Italian company, started by Felice Bisleri, first brought the idea of selling bottled water in India. It started a company called Bisleri India. In 1969, Ramesh Chauhan, the Chairman of Parle Exports, bought over the brand. In those days, Bisleri packaged drinking water was available in glass bottles.
Being a returnable package owing to various other problems such as breakage and weight, in 1972-73, Bisleri was made available in PVC (Poly Vinyl Chloride) bottles. After this plastic packaging was introduced, things started to change, and sales increased rapidly.
Slowly with competitors coming into the fray, varied sized bottles started coming in, catering to specific market segments!
But recently the license of Bisleri’s Delhi unit has been cancelled on grounds of quality. And the most important thing in this water-war is quality and Bisleri has been framed for being low on quality!!!
BIS certification is now mandatory for bottled water. It involves maintaining certain standards of quality which come from regular check ups, mandatory tests and shop-floor accountability.
Voluntary Organisation In Interest of Consumer Education (VOICE) conducted the comparative testing on mineral water and found that Bisleri and some other brands failed to qualify as they were far below the minimum required level of Total Dissolved Soils (TDS).
Mineral water is characterised by the contents of certain mineral salts and their relative proportions and the presence of trace elements or other constitutes.
As mineral water is covered under the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act (PFA), drinking water is not and the Act must be immediately amended to include it.
So the term ''Mineral Water'' from the marketing promos has slowly and wisely being changed by ''Drinking Water''!!!
Strict laws need to be laid down, as such malpractices and empty and hollow claims affect human life and this should be taken pretty seriously.
It appears that there are no statutory standards for bottled drinking water in India.
The Prevention of Food Adulteration Act has statutory standards only for mineral water.
Every year millions of rupees are siphoned into the big projects of ''river-cleaning'' and nothing comes out of it. Sometimes water treatment in the rivers is carried out using milk, but then this is arguably not the solution.
The onus not only lies with the Government solely, but also on the citizens aswell. We should try and stem our poisonous drainage from getting into the rivers ''untreated''. The better the natural flowing water, the easier it will be for the bottled industry to treat water!
Do not go by the media gimmicks like ''Play Safe'' and stuff, do not go by the face value, be practical.
Lets hope that strict norms cleanse our water, so that the devotee taking a dip in the holy river Ganges, which is said to purge the sins, does not end up catching human made sins!!!
