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This is with reference to "Regulating Pesticides: When a ban is not actually a ban" (Business Line, February 16): The detection of significant amounts of pesticide and chemical residues in bottled drinking water is a matter of grave concern indeed. In a country such as India where consumer awareness is low and there is abundant use of pesticides, the health risk to the community is much more than the theoretical or expected possibility. Complicating the matter further is the aggressive marketing of industrial houses and their agents who tend to give only one side of the story and hide the undesirable side effects of these agents polluting air, soil and water and eventually the food system chain.

Since profit motives and money-making rule the roost, it is inevitable that polluting and dangerous agents will find their way to the consumer and the public at large. High levels of pesticides, weedicides, herbicides and even fertilisers can cause a variety of birth defects and developmental defects as well. The effects of these agents on young children can be devastating as well. These agents can also cause an unspecified number of health problems in adults, including allergies, cancer, respiratory, gastro-intestinal and neurological disorders.

The regulatory agencies must keep a strict watch on the composition of drinking water (both bottled or un-bottled) and take appropriate action to ensure that the public gets only the best possible water for drinking and cooking purposes, with minimum of unwanted chemical or other impurities.

It will be better if the authorities ban the use of all pesticides, weedicides, herbicides and other chemicals.

Nandakumar Moorkath

Kuwait

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