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Water forms an essential part of every living being. After air, water is the mostimportant
necessity for life. Water plays a number of functions for the body. It servesas the body's
transportation system, it acts as a lubricant, it regulates the bodytemperature etc. The
eulogy for water is an unending thing. In fact more than 2/3rd ofthe human body is
made of water. The importance of water for human body can bewell accessed from the
fact that if the amount of water in our body is reduced by just1-2%, we feel very thirsty.
If it's reduced by 5%, our skin will shrink and we willhave difficulty moving our muscles
and if it's reduced by 10%, we will die.
Moreover with this commodity being a human necessity it makes best senseto
do business in. As a normal human being requires on an average needs 2-3 litresof
water everyday and world population is more than 6 billion (growing at 2-3%annually),
the business opportunity is humongous and the potential is largelyuntapped. These
facts about water added to the growing number of cases of waterborne diseases,
increasing water pollution, increasing urbanization, increasingscarcity of pure and safe
water etc. have made the bottled water business quitelucrative. In addition with getting
pure drinking water from municipal taps in citiesand towns becoming a luxury the
scenario has become so lucrative in business sensethat the opportunity is being
misused by a number of companies especially in ourcountry. These companies are
selling plain tap water under the name of mineralwater and are be-fooling consumers.
The situation has got aggravated by lack ofawareness among common people about
mineral water and also due to lack ofinitiatives on part of the government both on count
of setting stringent norms as wellas on taking action against non-compliers. In fact one
of the major factor forflourishing of the sector is the public fear that water supplied by
civic bodies is impure.

The tradition of bottled water and mineral water is not very old. Even in
westerncountries the practice of bottled drinking water started in 1950s. The trend of
havingmineral water gained grounds in the market.
Since ancient time people have used water from mineral springs, especially hot
springs,for bathing due to its supposed therapeutic value for rheumatism, arthritis, skin
diseases,and various other ailments. Depending on the temperature of the water, the
location, thealtitude, and the climate at the spring, it can be used to cure different
ailments. Thisstarted the trend of using mineral water for drinking purpose to exploit the
therapeuticvalue of the water. This trend started gaining momentum in mid 1970s and
since thenlarge quantities of bottled water from mineral springs in France and other
Europeancountries are exported every year.
The concept of bottled has been quite prevalent in western countries due to greater
healthconsciousness and higher awareness about health and hygiene. The
internationalstandards regarding bottled water are so stringent that for a particular brand
of water to becertified as bottled water it has to get approvals on four levels: federal,
state, tradeassociation and individual company levels.
In United States, the bottled water industry is regulated on four levels: federal (by
theU.S. Food and Drug Administration as a food product), state, industry association,
andindividual company. EPA (Environment Protection Agency) regulates public
watersystems. FDA regulates bottled water that crosses statelines.