As more households in metro cities switch to water purifiers due to scarcity of potable drinking water, experts are worried about the lack of stringent standards for the equipment.
"In India, unlike producers of natural mineral water and packaged drinking water who are required to meet BIS standards, there is no such mechanism for ensuring safety of potable water purification devices."
Most developed countries like the US (Environment Protection Agency), European countries (European Chemicals Agency) and Australia have their own regulatory bodies for monitoring safety of all types of drinking water.
"Generally chemical-based purifiers cannot remove dissolved solids from water and thus not recommended in areas with high hardness or other dissolved solids."
"There is a great risk of formation of disinfection by-products, even in the most commonly used disinfectant – Chlorine. It can lead to adverse health effects in the long run, ranging from metabolic disorders to renal failure and cancer."
The branded players fall short of adequate disclosure requirements like the type of chemicals used, life of filters and other components. "There should be a comprehensive mandatory labelling based on international best practices."
Even the major brands agree to the need for setting standards and adequate labelling. "We support the views that there should be comprehensive testing done to verify the claims made by different water purifier manufacturers and that appropriate standards need to be developed by the government and industry bodies for water purifiers in general," Vikram Surendran, General Manager (Water), Hindustan Unilever Ltd.
"We hope the Indian government will bring in policy changes to set standards and monitor portable water purification devices,"
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