UPDATE

Lead is a well-known neurotoxin which damages, destroys or impairs the function of the nervous system. It has been historically used by paint manufacturers as a colouring agent, to enhance durability, longevity and to make it corrosion resistant. Lead in paints is a toxic threat to the young children, especially between the age group of 0-6 years. It impacts 40 million children worldwide, over 97 per cent of whom live in developing countries. Health and environmental concerns have prompted the governments across the globe to ban the use of lead in household paints.

In India, some paint companies have voluntarily shifted from lead to lead free formulations of decorative paints. But even if lead is not added directly to the paint, still the paint can have varying levels of lead content due to the raw materials containing lead used during formulations. It is in this light that Toxics Link in collaboration with Quality Council of India (QCI) organized a Preliminary Stakeholder Meeting on Third Party Certification for Decorative Paints on April 9th, 2013 at India Islamic Cultural Center, New Delhi. The meeting was held under the auspices of the seven-nation EU-SWITCH Asia Lead Paint Elimination Project which took off in July 2012.The meeting sought to share the current status of lead in paint issue (in general and health based) and the bottlenecks of shifting from leaded to lead free paints by the paint manufacturers.

http://toxicslink.org/docs/lead_in_paints/REPORT-Preliminary-Stakeholders-Meet.pdf