In today’s Finshots, we explain how sugary drinks are finally banned from calling themselves ORS and why it took so long for the ban to finally be implemented on all energy drinks, ready-to-serve drinks and electrolyte beverages.

But before we begin, here’s a quick note from our co-founder: “When we started Finshots, our aim was to make finance simple and accessible for everyone. Soon, we realised that understanding finance is just one of the challenges. Making smart decisions, especially around insurance, is a whole different ball game. That’s why we built Ditto, a platform that makes insurance simple. No jargon, no spam, just honest advice from advisors who are only here to help you find the right plan.”

So, if you haven’t already, go get your free, personalised insurance advice by clicking here.

Now, on to today’s story.

The Story

It’s 10 am on a Saturday morning. Last night’s dinner didn’t sit well, meaning your child might have spent the morning vomiting or with an upset tummy. Every parent knows the drill. You rush to a pharmacy and ask for the only thing the World Health Organisation (WHO) says truly works: ORS.

Sitting camouflaged in the middle of this apothecary of medicinal aids, is a harmless looking tetrapack with a printed picture of a fruit, with the tag ‘ORSL’. And even when you clearly ask the pharmacist to hand you an ‘ORS’, chances are they’d be giving you the ORS-adjacent products, unaware there’s a difference.

For years, this is how many Indian parents ended up giving a sugar-filled drink to their children, unaware that they were just calling themselves ‘ORS’ or using clever wordplay to mimic the real thing. On the outside, they looked, sounded and even packaged themselves to look real, harmlessly sitting in every pharmacy in the country.

The reality was that these weren’t really ORS. According to WHO, an ORS is an oral rehydration salt used to treat dehydration. Being dehydrated itself might sound harmless, but it’s not the ‘hot summer day’ or ‘5K run’ type we’re talking about. Think actual problems from bad food and other stomach issues, which are actually fatal among children 5 years old and below.

And the problem was these sugary drinks were ORS impostors. The companies marketed them as something you could use for everyday rehydration, not necessarily for diarrhoea, which they conveniently wrote at the back of the pack. But let’s be honest, how many of us actually read labels carefully back then? So in a moment when the body desperately needed electrolytes and salts to recover, it ended up getting a flavoured sugary juice instead. And that only made things worse.

At that point, your body knew something was wrong, but your mind was confused, because all the steps were followed: medicines on time, light food, hot water, the whole nine yards. So nobody could understand how or why things were going sideways.

That’s when around 2016-17, Dr. Shivaranjani Santosh started looking into it herself. The Hyderabad-based doctor was just one among the many doctors who saw parents giving children these drinks unknowingly. Those “ORS-adjacent” drinks also contained far more sugar than the WHO-recommended ORS formula. So this was not just mislabelling. The drinks were nowhere near what they mimicked.

For context, according to WHO, an ORS should have just 1.35 grams of sugar per 100 ml. Those ORS-adjacent drinks had about 11 grams for the same quantity. Seeing this, Dr. Shivaranjani started her campaign around the same time and began filing RTI petitions, wrote to ministries, worked on public awareness and of course, approached the courts as well. In all that time, the pseudo ORS drinks were still allowed to be sold, showcased and self-labelled as an ‘ORS’.

Imagine you’re in the shower on hair-wash day. In the steamy mist, your hand reaches for the shampoo… but you accidentally grab the conditioner instead. Normally, that’s just an annoying start to your morning. But in the case of ORSL-style drinks, the stakes were much higher than a bad hair day.

Which leads to the real question: How were these drinks allowed to sit right next to certified medical-grade ORS in pharmacies?

Well, it starts with the red tape. If you’re selling a WHO-standard medicinal aid or drug, then that product comes under the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) and the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940. All drugs sold in India must be safe, effective and meet quality standards. That means to call something a medicinal product you need trials, testing, pre market approval, and registration. It’s what stops anyone from claiming what they’re selling is ‘medicine’ or therapeutic in nature.

But since these weren’t registered medicinal products, (they were sold as “foods” despite calling themselves ‘ORS’) they didn’t have to follow those drug regulations. Instead they came under the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) as food items. Until very recently, that distinction wasn’t fully clear or enforced, even by regulators themselves. Complaints bounced between both regulators, slowing any outcome. This is what Dr. Santosh experienced in 2021–22 when she contacted CDSCO and posted on social media to keep the pressure up.

To make matters even more confusing, FSSAI itself jumped back and forth. For instance, back in April 2022 the regulator issued its first strong warning about the misuse of “ORS” in drinks. Finally, FSSAI acknowledged the problem. That would have been the end of it, except just three months later in July they pulled back the order. The difference?

The drink companies were allowed to continue using “ORS-style” branding with a small disclaimer. You’ve probably seen it: “This product is not an ORS formula as recommended by WHO.” Also, older brand owners who already had trademarks might still use the ORS-wording in their label.

This set a dangerous precedent. Because guess who already owned these ORS-style trademarks? Large corporations with deep pockets. For instance, JNTL Consumer Health (Kenvue India, formerly part of Johnson & Johnson) already owned the brand “ORSL”, which fought hard to protect its trademark before the new rules came in. Even until the end, they fought tooth and nail to get that last batch, sized at about ₹180 crores, sold before the new rules came into effect.

Another big brand, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, for its “Rebalanz VITORS” drink, also challenged FSSAI’s directives in court. Both approached courts, securing interim reliefs while they cleared the old stock away.

This felt like a loss in a way, and it genuinely raised questions about food safety. But here’s why the courts allow this to happen.

Usually, regulators don’t ban products overnight without giving the manufacturer a buffer period to sell old stock, provided they don’t produce and sell any more of it. This lessens the outcome of being sued by the manufacturer on grounds of legal reversal and unfair losses. And indeed, by the old rules the manufacturers were technically compliant. The old stock was made when the rules allowed them to, so they weren’t breaking any laws.

But things like buffer period, pushback, and legal technicalities can’t delay what’s inevitable — the overall health of the public.

After nearly eight years of warnings from doctors, complaints from parents, and repeated reminders that “ORS” is a life-saving medical formulation, the regulator finally acted decisively.

In October 2025, FSSAI issued what would become the turning point. It issued a landmark order withdrawing all earlier permissions that had allowed food and beverage products to use the term ‘ORS’ as a part of their branding. This time, the writing was as clear as day: 

No food or drink can use the term ‘ORS’ — whether as a trademark, prefix, suffix, or part of the product name, unless it meets the WHO-recommended ORS formulation, which is classified as a drug.

But a ruling is only as strong as its enforcement. And the companies weren't ready to go down without a fight.

Only this time, the Delhi High Court didn’t blink. About two weeks after FSSAI’s order, the court upheld the order. Public health, it seemed, won over corporate profits.

In the weeks that followed the ruling, state authorities have started pulling the non-compliant products off shelves and e-commerce platforms. And there you have it, folks — the ORS saga. A messy eight-year ride, ending in a landmark win that doesn’t just fix one label. It sets the tone for how food safety will evolve in India.

Until next time…..

Fun Fact: The ORS formula that saves lives today was championed by Dr Dilip Mahalanabis during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War. With almost no supplies and a raging cholera outbreak, he used a simple salt-sugar solution. WHO later adopted it worldwide.

If this story helped you make sense of the ORS story, share it with your friends, family or even strangers on WhatsApp, LinkedIn and X.