A BIS number is essential for the sale of bottled drinking water and mineral water.
In the sweltering summer heat, there have been several complaints about bottled still and mineral water being marketed without BIS certification.
Following rising complaints over bottled still and mineral water being marketed without BIS certification in the sweltering summer heat, the food regulator has urged state and union territory food commissioners to evaluate the licences given to bottlers.
On packaged water bottles, BIS (Bureau of Indian Standards) certification is required.
“We received this tip off in one of our meetings with Packaged Drinking Water (PDW) Manufacturers Association and we immediately took action,” Inoshi Sharma, executive director, regulatory compliance at the Food Safety Standard Authority of India (FSSAI), who wrote the letters to states and union territories, told Mint.
“Many times, when people apply for an FSSAI licence, they tell us they’ve applied for a BIS certificate, and we grant them a licence based on their guarantee that they’re also applying for a BIS certificate.” We have no idea what happens or why food service firms refuse to use BIS numbers.
“As a result, we’ve written to the states/UTs requesting that they perform a special drive to determine if all makers of PDW and mineral water have a BIS number or not, and that appropriate action be taken.”
According to Sharma, a BIS number is essential for selling bottled drinking water and mineral water.
As per BIS, the newly published standard for drinking water is IS 17482:2020.
“It is requested to review the licences granted for the manufacturing of packaged drinking water and mineral water products under your jurisdiction and verify whether the said licensees have furnished the valid BIS certificate for the same through the FoSCoS (Food Safety Compliance System) portal,” she wrote in her letter. If such certifications are not accessible, a notice may be issued to Food Business Operators (FBOs) requiring them to provide them within a certain time frame. Licenses may be cancelled/suspended if such licences are not obtained, according to the FSS (Licensing and Registration of Food Business Regulation, 2011),” the letter read.
State governments have also been asked to launch a special push to assess the quality of packaged drinking water, according to the apex food regulator. All food commissioners must submit ‘action taken’ reports by May 31 to the FSSAI.
Recently, the FSSAI received multiple complaints about various fruit-based or non-carbonated or Ready-to-Drink beverage producers misusing the word ‘ORS’ [Oral Rehydration Salts] by labelling or using terminology similar to ORS as ‘ORSL’, ‘ORSL Rehydrate’, ‘Electro Plus ORS’, and so on.
The product ‘ORS,’ according to the FSSAI, is a Drug under Drugs and Cosmetics Rules L945 that is used to treat acute diarrhoea and has a particular composition prescribed by the Drugs Controller General of India.
The state’s top food regulator has asked its colleagues to check such labelling and correct any errors as soon as possible, while also ensuring that the word ‘ORS’ is not used in the labelling of such items.