JPC told to set practical norms

The three chambers of commerce today told the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) looking into pesticide residues in beverages that EU norms...

The three chambers of commerce today told the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) looking into pesticide residues in beverages that EU norms for these is not feasible. According to them, the country should be able to evolve its norms based on CODEX guidelines.

While CSE had said that they were in favour of ‘‘most stringent standards’’, the industry reiterated that no country had standards for finished products and ‘‘realistic’’ and ‘‘practical’’ standards should be set. Assocham said consumption patterns and the country’s food basket were different, hence special standards should be evolved keeping in mind CODEX or WHO guidelines. These are less strict as compared to EU standards.

CII said EU norms will harm trade and increase the price for consumers hence own standards should be set. EU standards are not followed even by member countries, they reiterated. FICCI also said that ‘‘ground realities need to be kept in mind before any standards are announced’’.

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The JPC also made another disclosure that does not speak well of testing facilities in the country. Tests conducted on soft drinks by two major laboratories were fine before the CSE disclosure on pesticide. ‘‘We have asked them how no traces of pesticides were found before the CSE report,’’ said JPC chairman Sharad Pawar.

Mysore-based Central Food Technological Research Institute and Kolkata-cased Central Food Laboratories did not show any presence of pesticide in soft drinks samples.

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