New Delhi: The licence of one of the units manufacturing leading bottled water brand, 'Bisleri', has been suspended by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) for not meeting the mandatory quality parameters.

"Based on the quality inspection carried out by the BIS, a 'stop-marking' order has been issued against Bisleri's plant here," official sources said. This amounts to forbidding that particular unit from using the mandatory ISI mark and thereby stopping production.

Officials in the manufacturing unit, however, refused to comment on the stop-marking order of the BIS.

Earlier, Bisleri chief Ramesh Chauhan had denied that any action has been taken against his company.

BIS officials said there is a routine quality inspection on a regular basis for all bottled water manufacturers whose production is benchmarked against a set of quality parameters.

It was based on this quality inspection that the stop-marking order was issued against Bisleri, they said, adding that it did not amount to "cancellation" of the licence.

Sources said once the problem was rectified, the licence to use ISI mark will be restored.

Meanwhile, officials in the Bisleri plant said a water pipeline had burst and they expected production to resume latest by next Tuesday. As a result the machinery had stopped functioning and technicians were deployed to restore it at the earliest.

It may be recalled that the Government had upgraded the quality standards for bottled drinking water from January one this year following allegations of excess presence of pesticides.