When Parliament discusses the bottled water controversy in this session, the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) will have a lot to answer for. First and foremost, it will have to explain how it proposes to enforce European Economic Commission (EEC) standards when its own laboratories do not have the equipment to test for these! Going by the way BIS has reacted after Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) released its report that 17 samples had a deadly cocktail of 20 pesticides, it seems people will continue to consume these inspite of BIS claims that it is notifying the world’s best standards. 8 units lost ISI mark The Government has barred eight units from using the ISI mark. The order was issued by Consumer Affairs Minister Sharad Yadav. Those companies are: Kothari Beverages, Thana; Ion exchange, New Bombay; Pepsico India holding, Bharuch; Bisleri International, Bangalore; Vaibhav Aqua, Mumbai; Sardul mineral water and soda, Jamshedpur; Vaishali mineral water, Hazipur and Surat beverages, Dadra. (Agencies) The condition of the BIS laboratories and its bureaucratic and casual approach to its job totally negates the objective for which it was set up. Consider these facts: • The machine needed to test water samples for the standards that BIS wants to enforce is a simple capillary column called the Electron Capture Detector. It costs Rs 25 lakhs and needs to be imported, but so far, there has been no move to acquire it. Other labs in the country have it — for example, the Indian Institute of Agriculture Research and Indian Institute for Technology has three machines. This machine can test at least those pesticides which have chlorine in them at least 10 times less than 0.001 ppb, the EEC standard. • BIS has eight labs of its own, but instead of upgrading them, it has been using the facilities of private labs and spending as much as Rs 10,500 per sample, according to official sources. This is when they get 2 paisa per bottle from the manufacturers as ‘marking fee’. Their annual revenue from this sector has been as much as Rs 7 crore but they have not yet thought of upgrading their labs. According to these sources, BIS spent as much as Rs 2 crore in getting water samples tested last year inspite of the standards being much lenient than what it is proposing now. • Instead of posting microbiologists in labs, BIS often sends them on regional or field postings on special request. The result is that even the Central laboratory in Sahibabad in Delhi does not have a microbiologist. When a move was made to get two of them from Jaipur, they resisted it and have still not moved to Delhi. • About 10 of their technical staff, including the director of laboratories, are facing a ministerial inquiry for alleged misuse of funds in buying laboratory equipment. The annual audit report of 1997-98 had particularly pointed out the case of an expensive helmet safety testing machine that was left on the lawns of the Central laboratory unopened for years till all its parts were stolen. The Indian Express sent a fax to BIS Director General Nirmal Singh and PRO Praveen Saxena on Monday, asking them to clarify their stand on issues dealt with in this report. Despite several reminders, they said they were unable to do so since ‘‘they needed clarifications from several departments and officers.’’ A day after the CSE expose on February 7, BIS held a meeting and the next day — a Sunday — notified the EU norms. All objections from the technical staff on how these would be enforced were not allowed to be raised. As a knee-jerk reaction, BIS immediately issued a note to all its laboratories in the country to collect bottled water samples from all over the country. The samples are still lying in the labs as the bill for Rs 54 lakhs to test them is unapproved. When the industry put pressure, the Bureau decided to hold a seminar with ‘experts’ and all stakeholders and concluded that the water in the market was ‘‘safe’’ though they are going in for EEC standards. Sources within the BIS say that since the consumers are not able to afford travel from other cities, such meetings are often dominated by industry people who manage to get their way. In fact, scientists unoffically admit that the standard ‘‘below detectable limit’’ is very vague and means nothing considering the sorry state of laboratory equipment.
