NEW DELHI: In a major enforcement push, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has ordered all states and Union territories to immediately pull off the shelves a range of fruit-based beverages, ready-to-drink products, electrolyte drinks and similar beverages that continue to misuse the term “ORS” on their labels – a practice the regulator says is misleading and illegal.The directive, issued on Nov 19, follows FSSAI’s earlier orders on Oct 14 and 15 withdrawing permission to use “ORS” – whether as a standalone term or with prefixes and suffixes – in the names of food and drink products. The authority said that several companies continue to flout those orders, selling products across e-commerce platforms, grocery stores, pharmacies, supermarkets and other modern trade outlets in violation of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006.To curb the malpractice, states/UTs have been instructed to launch urgent inspection and verification drives, identify non-compliant products, ensure their immediate removal from sale, and initiate regulatory action against violators. A detailed action-taken report listing inspections, violations found, corrective steps taken, and status of product removal must be submitted to FSSAI at the earliest.In a significant clarification aimed at preventing field-level confusion, the regulator cautioned officials not to interfere with sales of genuine WHO-recommended Oral Rehydration Salts (ORS), which are classified as drugs under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940. Such ORS products, used against dehydration and for diarrhoeal management, fall outside FSSAI’s jurisdiction and must not be sampled, seized or removed from stores.The authority noted instances where enforcement teams had mistakenly targeted legitimate ORS products, and reiterated that its crackdown applies strictly to food and beverage products misleadingly marketed as ORS and not to medical ORS formulations.
