Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority (PSQCA) has sealed about 128 units of bottled water brands during last eight months.
Talking to media, PSQCA Director General Khalid Siddique said these included illegal production units and violators of standard and quality laws. He said about 100 bottled water brands were sealed across the country during 2016 to ensure provision of quality water in open market.
The DG said on recent report of Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources, the department had seized the 11 water factories which included nine illegal and two license holder units.
“The department receives information from various sources regarding illegal and substandard bottled water brands besides its own monitoring and surveillance network”, he said.
He said PSQCA was going to introduce QR code system to stop the illegal printing of any brand, saying that these codes would be traceable and would be issued only to the licensed unit. The department also randomly used to check the quality of various brands and take action against the units which were producing poor quality water, Khalid Siddique said.
He said due to efficiency and efforts of the department the poor quality water had decreased significantly.
The PCRWR had recently declared 11 brands unsafe including Well Care, Lite Aqua, New Premier, Royal Blue, Aqua Safe, Aqua Drink Water, Rahat, Oslo, NG Fresh Water, Nurturmil Water and Aab-e-Khoob due to chemical and microbiological contaminations. The PSQCA had sealed nine illegal unites permanently and two licensed units were asked to improve their quality.