Indian Bottled Water Manufacturers' Association said on Monday that industry players were ready to upgrade technology to ensure better quality of water, entailing additional investments and 30-40 per cent hike in prices.

The central government asked some bottling units to close down operations on the charges of flouting quality norms even though they followed standards set by Bureau of Indian Standards, IBWMA president Raieev Sehgal told reporters in Mumbai.

"The industry players were very much concerned with quality of bottled water but the source of impurity (pesticide content) lay in the water supplied by the municipal bodies. These public bodies providing water should also be brought under the ambit of quality standards", Sehgal said.

"The government should first make up its mind on what standards should be put in place and give industry adequate time to implement the same", he said adding this would need more investment and prices would go up by 30-40 per cent.

India was signatory to the WTO aggrement which sets standards for drinking water quality and even European Union also putting in place standards only next year, Sehgal said.

"Just revision of packaged water standards will not solve the problems of common man, who cannot afford bottled water. They depend on public supplies. Besides chemical contamination, the untreated sewage also posed a grave health hazard to public", he said.

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