The Hindu Business Line : Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, Limca clear the bar: CFTRI report

IT'S official now - Limca, Diet Pepsi and Pepsi are the three of the 12 soft drinks that were cleared for pesticide residue following tests at a Government laboratory.

Even as the soft drinks controversy now lies at the doorstep of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) — the Union Health Ministry on Thursday made public the contentious report on pesticide residue in soft drinks as analysed by the Mysore-based Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI).

Of the 12 brands put under the microscope — only Limca from the

Coca-Cola stable, Diet Pepsi and Pepsi were below the permissible limits for pesticides as per the EU norms, the CFTRI report pointed out.

The report was commissioned by the Health Ministry in the wake of a study done on soft drinks by environmental group, Centre For Science and Environment (CSE).

The CSE study had pointed out that while all 12 soft drink brands met the existing Indian norms for soft drinks, they had not met the pesticide residue norms of the EU, the only norms that had parameters for single and multiple pesticides.

The mandate of the two Government laboratories — CFTRI and Kolkata-based Central Food Laboratory (CFL) — was to find out whether the soft drink samples contained pesticides when benchmarked against the EU norms.

The report concludes that pesticides such as lindane was present in 100 per cent of the samples, with 33 per cent exceeding the EU norms by 1.1 to 1.4 times. DDT was present in 58 per cent of the samples and exceeded the EU norms by 1.8 to 12.4 times.

Chlorphyriphos was in 100 per cent of the samples and exceeded the limit in 75 per cent of the samples. It exceeded the EU norms by 3.9 to 7.8 times. Malathion was, however, not detected in the 12 samples.

But what does all the scientific mumbo-jumbo mean to a consumer of soft drinks? Voluntary Health Association of India's (VHAI), Director (Women Health and Development and Rational Drug Policy), Dr Mira Shiva observes: "The numbers are significant since with pesticides, toxicity is cumulative. People are paying for it and when they consume a product from an MNC, the expectation is high in terms of product safety. Youngsters have a Coke or Pepsi as a substitute for water and they have about five to six bottles a day. Pesticides are known to result in congenital malfunctions. DDT is banned in agriculture, but is allowed as domestic sprays to kill mosquitoes, for instance. DDT can cause hormone changes, affects production of blood cells, adversely affects the liver and the central nervous system. The larger issue is the use of pesticides, the need for unbiased information as a farmer, a doctor or a consumer."

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