Testing Troubled Waters

Sunita Narain

Director, Centre For Science And Environment

Operating from a spartan office in Tughlakabad in the southern fringes of Delhi, 41-year-old Sunita Narain has thrown the Rs 1,000-crore packaged water industry into a turmoil.

On February 4, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) published a report saying leading packaged water brands contained pesticides beyond permissible limits.

Next day there was mayhem in the markets. Though packaged water companies were reluctant to accept, sales came to a standstill.

Top officials at the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), the government body that certified most of these brands as being safe, went into a huddle pouring over the report.

For Narain and CSE, this is just another campaign. Most CSE campaigns, including those on air cleanliness, CNG and diesel, have managed to wake up government bodies from their stupor and forced them to react. After all, Narain is a veteran of over 20 years at the centre.

Narain, a bachelor in arts from the Delhi University and a Business Standard columnist, joined CSE in 1981 as a volunteer, a year after it was set up by Anil Agarwal. (Agarwal passed away last year after suffering from cancer for many years, passing the baton to Narain.)

In 1982, she was taken on the company