Bottled-water seized over font size

How often do people check the manufacturing date, batch number of the brand or the maximum retail price (MRP) printed on the bottle before making a purchase? Most people casually pick it up little realising that the regulations are there for their protection. However, a concerned individual recently filed a complaint with the Department of Legal Metrology against a city-based bottled-water company for not adhering to the rules and regulations thereby putting the lives of people at risk.

The city president of Bhartiya Manav Adhikar Sanrakshan Sangh, Prashant Goenka, filed a complaint against the company for not printing the manufacturing date, batch number or MRP on the bottle. Based on his complaint, the Controller, Assistant Controller and the flying squad of Legal Metrology department visited the plant and seized water bottles without the necessary details. “We found that this company violated multiple rules set by the Department of Legal Metrology,” said Controller of Legal Metrology Girija Shankar Naik to City Express. Elaborating on the violation of the rules, Naik said, “According to Package Commodity rules, any commodity exceeding five litres cannot be manufactured. But the company was manufacturing 20 litre water bottles against the rules and they claimed that the approval of Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) was sought.”

Apart from not printing the essential details, font size on the labels too did not meet the specifications, said officials. “We seized empty 500 ml water bottles too from the plant,” said Naik. The bottles were seized under the Section 15 of Legal Metrology act (2009), which states that the seized property  is liable to be fortified to the State Government. “As per the rules of the Department of Legal Metrology the manufacturer must produce adequate details to start a company like the manufacturing licence, trade license and package licence. Violation of such rules will be considered an offence,” he added. He said that a complaint against the brand will be filed in the magistrate court shortly. When City Express spoke to the proprietor of the plant, Sheela R, she said that the brand’s labels were approved by the BIS. “We took the approval of BIS for the labels. The licence number too was renewed by them. We produced the monthly water test report to the Legal Metrology Department regularly too,” she said. However, she said that she was unaware of the need for approval from the Department to procure the manufacturing, trade and the package licence. “Since we were unaware of these procedures, we have now requested the assistant controller of the Department to provide us time to produce all the necessary legal documents,” she added.