New Delhi, July 21: A day after the health ministry notified norms for water to be used in soft drinks, Sunita Narain — who took on Coke and Pepsi last year over pesticide content in colas — said tougher regulations should be brought in for the finished product, not just individual ingredients.

“The health ministry draft notification is a good first step, but not enough,” the head of the Centre for Science and Environment said at a news conference this morning. The ministry’s water norm conforms to EU standards and has to be followed by all cola and soft drink companies.

Narain said the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) had suggested a comprehensive set of measures which, if adopted, would make for more stringent standards. “The standards should be for the final product which in this case is soft drinks and not restricted to only the raw materials used in its manufacture,” she said.

In a sense, Narain appeared to set the stage for the next round of the fight between consumer activists and cola companies over the adoption of the draft voluntary BIS standards. All the health ministry needed to do was to make the draft standards mandatory instead of wasting time going over the same issues again, she said.

“When finalised, the draft standard issued by the BIS will be the first standard in the world on pesticide residues in soft drinks. This standard will go a long way in protecting public health as it will provide the roadmap for reform in making other food commodities safer,” a statement released at the news conference said.

Bejan Mishra, chairperson of the Consumer Coordination Council, the national coalition of 55 leading consumer groups across the country, was also present. The groups will join hands to work for the adoption of the BIS standards.

Narain said the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act regulated the quality of the final product so that contaminants from raw materials could be eliminated.

The BIS took a fresh look at aerated drinks after the Centre for Science and Environment released a study last year on the presence of pesticide residues in soft drinks.

A committee with representatives from the soft drink industry associations, consumer and environment groups as well as agricultural scientists, nutritionists and toxicologists had then sat together to thrash out the draft standards.