new delhi three years and 20 meetings later your bottle of cola is still not clean of pesticide residues the centre for science and environment cse alleges that the bureau of indian standards bis norms have been finalised but no notification has been given out to soft drink brands yetsays cse director sunita narain in early february 2004 confirming the unsafe levels of pesticides in soft drinks the joint parliamntary committee jpc had directed the government to set standards for these residues in the products since then the bis has in its sectional committee met over 20 times to deliberate on the standards but in vainnarain adds that after months of data analysis and discussion with stakeholders including two soft drink majors the standards were finalised by the committee in october 2005 in march 2006 the committee met once again to reconfirm the standards since then the status has been the same the standards are finalised but not notifiedthis is because the union ministry of health and family welfare has opposed the standards arguing that more research is required alleges narain the ministry has in the last three years set up committee after committee and various subcommittees to examine the safety concerns but with little progress clearly science cannot become a pretext for prevarication and obstruction we know that the companies are strongly opposed to this standard as it will bring them under the ambit of regulators she addsas the issue concerns public health it cannot be ignored says cse our demand is simple says cse experts the government must notify the final product standards and make these mandatory for soft drink companies so that soft drinks consumed particularly by children are checked and regulated no more delays no more procedures we want safety firstasked about the ministrys reservations narain claims the delay has been deliberate in october 2005 the standard was finalised and in march 2006 it was reconfirmed by the committee as ready for implementation soon after the bis website noted that the standard is 2346 has been finalised though not yet ready in print a few weeks later this mention was erased when contacted bis officials were silent on the issue recalling the sequence of events narain says in november 2004 central committee on food standards ccsf decided to set up a national expert committee to study the matter in 2005 national expert committee decided to test sugar samples and said this will be a pilot study in 2006 it said they are still testing officials said as this is a pilot study no time frame can be given on when the final standards will be set