Jolted out of slumber by the raging soft drinks controversy, the government is planning to apply European Union norms for pesticide limits on water used in drinks from January 2004.

"The draft is ready and we are going to issue a notification soon," Health and Family Welfare Minister Sushma Swaraj told reporters on Thursday.

Refuting that the government had given a clean chit to the soft drink manufacturers, she said Indian standards were different from EU standards.

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She said government has already notified that prescribed limits for pesticides in packaged drinking water will be become applicable from January, 2004.

However, she pointed out that besides water, sucrose was also used in soft drinks and there were no EU norms on this.

Asked if soft drinks consumed in India were safe for health, she said: "Soft drinks standards need improvement."

However, the presence of pesticide in water was not as high in the past, she added.

She said the three brands in which pesticide residues were below EU limits were Limca, Pepsi and Diet Pepsi.

Hitting back at the Opposition charge of kickbacks, she said they were making allegations against the Central Food Technological Research Institute, Mysore, which was the only accredited institute in the country.

She said the CFTRI had started testing soft drink samples immediately after the bottled water controversy and the government was placing the reports submitted by it.