from daijiworld's special correspondent

Panaji, Mar 15: The pesticide in soft-drinks issue has resurfaced again with Delhi-based NGO centre for science and environment (CSE) demanding that the government should set mandatory standards for amount of pesticides in the soft drinks.
 
"We still believe that government must agree on the total amount of pesticide that should be in the soft drinks," Sunita Narayan, director, CSE, told reporters here.

File pic of Sunita Narayan speaking to the media elsewhere

Reacting to the centre government's admission before the supreme court on Wednesday that "there are pesticide residues in the colas produced and sold in India," Narayan said that this time government's own committee has found pesticides in the products.
 
She cited that N K Ganguly committee, which was a committee set up by central government to finalise the standard for soft drinks, in its report, has said that the standard should be set by the government and it should be one (rpt one) PPB per eight pesticides.

"While we welcome the report of Ganguly committee, it should put the matter to rest. Now its very clear that there are pesticides in the soft drinks," Narayan said.

The CSE in its earlier study, titled 'Soft Drinks – Hard Truth II' had said that soft drinks in Delhi were containing high level of pesticides It claimed that Pepsi contained 30 times higher pesticide residue on an average and Coca Cola contained 27 times higher residue compared to results in 2003.

Referring to the clarifications issued by cola companies, she said that we (CSE) have shown repeatedly that the companies don't follow any standards. "This is why government's own committee has found pesticides in the products," the CSE director added.

"It's very clear that these companies have repeatedly put up film stars after film stars to cajole people and tell that there are no pesticides in their product and they are safe," Narayan stated.

The NGO said that they don't favour total ban on these colas or soft drinks. "We are asking the standards to be set up benchmarking what is safe level of pesticide which we can be exposed to. We should understand that we have lot of pesticides in our food products and things that we eat but those are essential part of our diet," Narayan said.
"We should reduce pesticide from essential products while we must minimise pesticides from non-essential products like soft drinks," she added.

Reacting to the film stars and cricketers endorsing the cola products, she said that they (actors and players) should keep in mind that they are important brand ambassadors for the companies but also heroes and role models for people in the society and when they endorse the product they must be clear that these companies are ot as clean as they say they are.