Udupi: If you happen to get thirsty and decide to buy a bottle of mineral water, and the shop keeper gives you the brand “Aqua Ice Burg”, a packaged water bottle manufactured by a company located in Santhekatte, near Udupi, you better have a close look at the water inside the bottle – for you may be surprised to see foreign particles. Two instances of foreign bodies found in two different water bottles manufactured by this company was discovered and brought to the notice of the public during a press meet organized by the State Unit of International Human Rights Action Committee.
Balakrishna K., general secretary of the Committee addressing the media persons said, “When some members of our committee, who had attended a wedding at Udyavara few days ago found a poisonous dead spider in the packaged water bottle served at the reception. Other day when I went to purchase a water bottle from a retail outlet in Udupi on July 3, the packaged water bottle of the same company had foreign particles floating in it.” Showing both the sealed water bottles with foreign particles in it, Balakrishna further said, “Although both the bottles carried an ISI mark, they had no other details such as batch number, date when it was packed or maximum retail price. This clearly violates the law. And anyone consuming this kind of dirty water may suffer fro food poisoning or other health problems. I demand that higher health officials and district administration to take legal action on the company or to ban further production of such contaminated water”.
Balakrishna further said, “The Aqua Ice Burg company mineral water bottles are supplied to the shops, halls and other functions for the public. We have also noticed that the surroundings around the company is not suitable for hygienic point of view for the production of drinking mineral water bottle to be supplied for huge members of public. The district administration should immediately confiscate water bottles of this company and take immediate legal action against it. We will also forward our complaints to the state government so that necessary action is taken, and no such dirty water is sold to the public.”
After getting information about this issue, Additional Deputy Commissioner Kumara, had directed the Food Safety Officer to visit the water bottle factory and collect samples from there. It is learnt that samples of water have already been collected and sent to a lab in Mysuru for testing. Suitable action will be taken after test results come back from the lab, and the Food Safety Officer had also been told to look into the issue of non-publication of batch number, manufacturing and expiry dates on the bottles, it is learnt.