new delhi an expert committee set up by union health ministry to examine the report by centre for science and environment cse on pesticide level in soft drinks held that there was no conclusive evidence on presence of different pesticides in the concentration reported health minister anbumani ramadoss said on tuesdayresults from gujarat and mysore laboratories on two samples of water and two carbonated drinks have revealed that the pesticide residues were not above permissible level he said ramadoss was participating in a short notice discussion on pesticides in soft drinks and packaged waterdirections have been issued to state and central laboratories to lift more samples of carbonated drinks and test them he addedthe minister further said that 213 samples had been lifted so far from 14 states and sent for testingdirectors of central food laboratories have also been asked to accept samples of carbonated water and packaged drinking water for checking the quality parameter including pesticide resides the minister addedit was not a question of banning or not banning and the issue of level of pesticide was a shortterm problem while health issue was the larger one he maintainedwhile standards have already been set for water the onus was on the manufacturer to ensure that the pesticide residue level was not above maximum permissible level he reiterated