FSSAI’s Proposed Tea Pesticide Limits: What the 0.01 mg/kg Question Means

India’s food regulator has proposed new pesticide-residue limits for tea. The figures are specific, but the proposal is not a final rule—and the documents raise a question about how the new entries would sit alongside existing testing guidance.

A draft notification issued by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) on 15 October 2026 and published in the Gazette on 16 October proposes maximum residue limits (MRLs) for two insecticides in tea: 20 milligrams per kilogram (mg/kg) for acetamiprid and 50 mg/kg for imidacloprid. The proposed entries would be added to the residue table in the Food Safety and Standards (Contaminants, Toxins and Residues) Regulations, 2011. They are still proposals, not limits that readers should treat as newly in force.

What exactly is FSSAI proposing?

The draft would add a tea entry against the existing acetamiprid and imidacloprid entries in the regulations’ residue table. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare says the proposal is intended to provide clearer benchmarks for monitoring and compliance, drawing on scientific assessments and international practices. The notification invites objections and suggestions for 60 days from the date the Gazette copies are made available to the public.

The proposal does not report that a particular tea brand or batch contains either pesticide. Nor are 20 mg/kg and 50 mg/kg measurements of residue found in retail tea. They are proposed maximum residue limits for the tea commodity.

Why tea needs a closer look

The Tea Board of India’s Plant Protection Code for Indian Tea Industry, Version 19, dated April 2026, lists acetamiprid 20% SP and imidacloprid 17.8% SL among formulations approved for use in tea plantations by the Central Insecticides Board and Registration Committee. In the same list, the residue limit for each is marked “MRL yet to be notified”.

The code explains that tea research institutes conduct efficacy and residue trials and submit data to the Central Insecticides Board and FSSAI for tea-use label claims and the fixing of MRLs. The draft would fill in two entries that the April code still identified as awaiting notification.

The unresolved 0.01 mg/kg question

There is an important piece of earlier guidance. In a direction dated 4 March 2024, FSSAI told its notified laboratories to test tea samples for six pesticides, including acetamiprid and imidacloprid. It said a tolerance limit of 0.01 mg/kg applied to those six substances.

The Tea Board’s April 2026 code also states that a tolerance limit of 0.01 mg/kg applies where an MRL has not been fixed. Its list still marked the two tea entries as awaiting notification. The October 2026 draft proposes 20 mg/kg and 50 mg/kg, but its text does not explain how the earlier laboratory direction will be handled if the draft is finalised.

That relationship needs an explicit regulatory explanation. It would be premature to describe the draft as an operative replacement for the earlier testing position. The draft itself is not yet final.

What an MRL does—and does not—tell you

The Codex Alimentarius Commission defines a pesticide MRL as the highest level of residue legally tolerated in or on food when the pesticide is used correctly in accordance with Good Agricultural Practice. It is a regulatory limit, not an average residue level and not a laboratory result for a particular packet of tea.

FSSAI’s public pesticide data portal currently lists the national tea MRL field as “NA” for both acetamiprid and imidacloprid. Its Codex column lists no tea value for acetamiprid and 50 mg/kg for imidacloprid. That is consistent with the draft’s proposed imidacloprid figure, but the portal’s national entries have not yet been updated to show the draft as a final Indian standard.

An MRL by itself cannot tell a shopper what is present in a particular brand or batch. That requires representative sampling and laboratory results. The draft notification does not publish tea-sample findings or the underlying residue-trial and dietary-exposure data used to arrive at the proposed figures.

What should tea drinkers take from this?

For now, the practical point is that FSSAI has opened a regulatory consultation; it has not announced a new final tea standard through this draft. The document names no brands and does not establish that tea on sale is unsafe. It also does not provide a basis for claiming that the proposed limits guarantee the safety of every tea product.

The next things to watch are the final notification, any explanation of how it interacts with the March 2024 laboratory direction, and the evidence supporting the proposed limits. For readers comparing tea by origin and garden, our guide to buying Darjeeling tea covers a different part of the decision; residue standards are a separate question.

Until FSSAI publishes the final position, the 20 mg/kg and 50 mg/kg figures should be described as proposed limits—not as current test results, a new permission to use pesticides, or a reason to draw conclusions about any individual tea brand.

Documents: FSSAI’s draft notification; FSSAI’s 4 March 2024 laboratory direction; Tea Board’s Plant Protection Code, Version 19; FSSAI Pesticide Data Repository; Ministry of Health and Family Welfare statement, 17 October 2026.