The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has been in receipt of representations from hotels for allowing them to serve drinking water in paper sealed glass bottles exclusively to in house guests as a commitment to environmental sustainability.
The matter has been examined. At present hotels across the country serve packaged drinking water in plastic bottles. The overall consumption of plastic bottles used in hotels results in considerable plastic wastage. Taking cognizance of this, it has been decided to allow to serve drinking water in paper sealed reusable glass bottles for captive use within the hotel premises subject to the following conditions: –
- The paper sealed glass water bottles will not be for sale and be served free of cost to in-house guests. The label of paper sealed glass bottles will prominently specify “Not for Sale” along with the name and address of the hotel.
- The hotels will set-up in-house drinking water bottling systems in their premises for serving paper sealed glass bottles and will follow the sanitation and hygenic conditions as prescribed under schedule IV of FSS(Licensing and Registration of Food Businesses) Regulations, 2011.
- The paper sealed glass bottled water as such shall deemed not to be covered under the definition of Packaged Drinking Water as specified under the FSS Act 2006 and Regulations.
- The water served shall conform to BIS specification IS 10500: 2012 (specification for drinking water).
- This issues with the approval of the Competent Authority.
Food Safety and Standards Authority of India
[Order dt. 09-09-2019]