All bottles containing alcoholic beverages will carry a statutory warning telling people that alcohol is harmful to health and asking them not to drink and drive.

This regulation will come into force from 1 April 2019, the country’s food regulator, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), has directed.

Citing Food Safety and Standards (Alcoholic Beverages Standards) Regulations, 2018 ~ which will come into effect from 1 April 2019 ~ the FSSAI, in a recent order, asserted that regulation 5.12 of these regulations stipulates the requirement of a statutory warning ~ stating “Consumption of alcohol is injurious to health. Be safe — Don’t drink and drive” ~ printed in English language on the label of alocoholic beverages. The size of this statutory warning will not be less than 3 mm.

This warning can also be printed in the local or regional language if any state desires to do so, the FSSAI said adding “In such cases, there would be no requirement of also printing this warning in English”.

The food regulator directed the food safety commissioners of all states and Union Territories to ensure that this directive is implemented uniformly from 1 April 2019 in coordination with excise departments of states.

The FSSAI’s move comes in the wake of a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by a social activist Prince Singhal in Delhi High Court in 2017 on having statutory warning ~ “Don’t drink and drive” ~ on labels of alcohol bottles to bring down road accident fatalities.

“Drinking and driving is an intentional crime and it should be treated as a pre-meditated criminal act since the person driving drunk knows or should know that he can cause potential harm while driving,” Singhal reportedly said. He runs an NGO, Community Against Drunken Driving (CADD).

He cited the examples of several countries across the world that have adopted such warnings ~ including USA, Kenya, South Africa, Thailand, Zimbabwe, Taiwan, Mexico, and Turkey ~ and have been able to bring down drunk driving tragedies.

He said Indian roads account for about 700,000 road accidents and 165,000 deaths every year, adding that road accidents are a critical public concern requiring urgent attention of policy-makers.