ISLAMABAD, Nov 14: The Ministry of Science and Technology will conduct a survey of the drinking water and food items available at some selected schools and teaching institutions of some major cities of Pakistan.

According to a Press release issued here by the MoST, the survey will be conducted by Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (PCSIR).

The survey is being conducted to assess the hygienic quality of drinking water in schools and teaching institutes to check weather it complies with international standards or not. Another objective is to determine the ill effects of low quality food particularly of artificial colours and other chemicals in the food items.

Total of 2,000 samples each of food items and water would be collected from the identified institutes of different areas of Lahore, Islamabad, Peshawar, Quetta and Karachi. They will be analyzed for colours and other chemicals injurious to health.

Food colours will be extracted from food materials, including candies, chewing-gum, sweets, ice-lollies, ice cream, sharbats, snack and will be identified and quantified by AOAC (Official Methods of Analysis 14th Edition, 1984).

The purity test of the colours will be carried out by spectrophotometer and HPLC (Pearson‘s Composition and Analysis of Foods 9th Edition 1989). Other Food Additives as oxalic, acid tartaric acid, rancidity of oil used in frying in some food items will also be analyzed by titration methods.

The results of the survey will be published in the reputed journals and also in the form of small booklets easily available to the people to inform them about the health hazard effect.