In India, where scorching temperatures and infrastructure gaps make clean water a luxury, packaged food and bottled water are seen as symbols of safety. But, beneath this perception lies a growing need to examine what’s inside the packaging and whether the safeguards we rely on are robust enough to keep pace with rising demand.
Recently, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) reclassified packaged drinking and mineral water as 'high-risk' food categories. With this reclassification comes a mandate for stricter inspections and annual third-party audits. It’s a step in the right direction, but also an urgent reminder of how far we still must go.
The surge in contamination-related alerts, ranging from microplastics to microbial presence and chemical residues, is not coincidental. What we are witnessing is a convergence of rapid industrial growth, fragmented regulation, and the limits of legacy safety infrastructure. These risks and lapses in safety are not mere technical failures but system-wide gaps that require more than just reactive solutions. This article explores the current state of packaged water and food safety in India, key threats, and the urgent need for vigilant regulation.
The hidden contaminants in packaged water
While packaged drinking water is often perceived as a safer alternative in India, emerging evidence paints a more complex picture. E. coli and other bacteria are still found in bottled water, often due to poor sanitation or untreated source water.
These pathogens pose immediate health risks to people. In parallel, chemical pollutants like nitrates, typically linked to agricultural runoff, and heavy metals like lead, arsenic, and cadmium, which can leach into groundwater from industrial discharge or aging pipes, have also been reported in several water quality assessments across the country.
More recently, microplastics have emerged as a significant concern. A 2024 study published in PNAS revealed that bottled water may contain up to 240,000 plastic particles per litre, many of them nanoplastics, invisible to the naked eye but capable of crossing biological membranes.
Compounds like bisphenol A (BPA) and phthalates, used in plastic manufacturing, can also leach into water, particularly when bottles are exposed to high temperatures. Though often found in low concentrations, the cumulative effect of these contaminants over time is not well understood and warrants deeper investigation through long-term exposure studies and biomonitoring.
Role of biomonitoring
For a country where demand for packaged food and beverages is expected to surge to USD 116 billion by 2030, the conversation around food safety can no longer be limited to isolated contamination events. It must evolve into a systemic discussion rooted in science and surveillance, and this is where biomonitoring becomes indispensable.
In the context of packaged food and water, with biomonitoring, we can detect residues of heavy metals, pesticides, plasticizers, and microbial toxins that traditional checks might miss. More importantly, biomonitoring gives regulators and policymakers data to trace back exposures, identify vulnerable populations, and take corrective action with far greater precision.
Unlike countries with established biomonitoring programs like Germany’s Environmental Specimen Bank and the U.S. CDC’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), India still relies heavily on environmental checks and post-crisis investigations.
Regulatory oversight and challenges
The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) laid down a robust regulatory framework that mirrors global benchmarks, particularly in areas like microbiological standards and licensing protocols. However, the challenge lies not in the regulations themselves, but in their on-ground implementation.
Enforcement gaps persist, especially in tier 2 and tier 3 cities, where a significant number of unlicensed operations continue to function beyond regulatory reach. FSSAI’s limited capacity for widespread surveillance and swift response to contamination incidents further weakens oversight, making it difficult to ensure consistent compliance across the country.
Additionally, with these pressing challenges, India must move beyond compliance toward a proactive, quality-first approach to food and water safety. Adopting 'Quality by Design' embeds safety into every production stage, reducing risks from the start. Strengthening training and awareness among manufacturers and regulators is vital to bridging implementation gaps. Ensuring the integrity of packaged consumables will ultimately depend on collaborative efforts between regulators, industry players, and consumers.
Veena P. Panicker is Head, of Bio. Monitoring, Merck Life Science India
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of THE WEEK.
