PSQCA declares 22 mineral water brands unsafe

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority (PSQCA) has revealed that in analytical findings 22 brands of mineral water were found to be unsafe due to chemical or microbiological contamination.

These brands included Coral Water HI, Fresh New, Nation Pak Aqua, HFC Total, NG freshwater, ECO, Al-Habib Silver, Orion Aqua, Arabia wellcare, desert dew, new deep lite aqua, aqua smart avalon pure water, new smart aqua, Mazan pure royal blue and aqua national, said a press release issued here Wednesday.

The poor quality of drinking water has forced a large cross-section of citizens to buy bottled water and as a consequence of this expanding market a mushroom growth of bottled water industry in the country is witnessed during the last few years.

However, many of the mineral water companies were found selling contaminated water. To monitor and improve the quality of bottled water the Pakistan government through ministry of science and technology has designated the task to Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR) for quarterly monitoring of bottled mineral water brands and publicise the results.

According to the monitoring report for the quarter from January to March 2016, 111 samples of mineral bottled water brands have been collected from Islamabad- Rawalpindi, Lahore, Tando Jam, Bahawalpur, Sargodha, Sialkot, Faisalabad, Sahiwal, Multan, Gujranwala, Karachi, Quetta, Muzaffarabad and Peshawar.