Adulteration of food to cost dearly in Delhi? So says the local government!

Whether one is amused or impressed by the recent proposal by the Delhi government to enhance punishments for the crimes against citizens perpetrated by the food manufacturers and traders depends on how serious one takes the present government in the saddle there. Though this is an admirable proposal, ground reality says that taking action against these criminals in not that easy under the Indian constitution. Majority of the so called food inspectors have doubtful credentials and credibility vis-a-vis their character and integrity and an average citizen must be pardoned if he thinks that such stringent laws in the statute book can only increase the bribe amounts, making them richer much faster! Of course these are only apprehensions and the good intentions of the government may still get translated into much needed relief to the common man from these heinous criminals. One thing is sure that unless the number and frequency of sampling are increased manifold and the judicial system is strengthened, nothing much will come out of this exercise. Let us give some time for the government to work out the logistics before passing any judgment one way or the other.

  "In extreme cases where adulteration could lead to death, Delhi Government has proposed imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than ten years but which may extend up to imprisonment for life and also with fine which shall not be less than Rs 20 lakh," the government said in a statement. As per exiting rule, in such cases, imprisonment is not less than seven years but which may extend up to life imprisonment and fine which shall not be less than Rs 10 lakh. The government has also proposed to increase penalty from existing Rs 1 lakh to Rs 5 lakh for unhygienic or unsanitary processing or manufacturing of food. An official said it has also been decided that with the enhancement of penalty, the transparency aspect should be strengthened and the prosecution process should be made speedy and time-bound including by setting up of special courts, for which provision exists in the act. The official said that a person, involved in such adulteration which is not injurious to health, will have to face imprisonment for a term which may extend up to three years or with a fine which may extend to Rs 5 lakh or both. "Besides, where such adulterant is injurious to health, imprisonment will not be less than five years which may extend up to life imprisonment or with fine which may extend to Rs 10 lakh rupees, or both," the official said.  According to the government, penalty for misleading advertisement will be Rs 10 lakh or thrice the cost of the advertisement whichever is more.  "As per the proposal, for the purpose of adjudication under this Act, an officer not below the rank of Additional District Magistrate or Metropolitan Magistrate of the district where the alleged offence is committed, shall be notified by the State Government as the Adjudicating Officer for adjudication in the manner as may be prescribed by the central government," the government said.

Food dealers in this country are a wily lot capable of doing any thing including the "Houdini" act to delay justice or demolish cases through hook or crook making governments look foolish and powerless. While paying regular "haftha" to food inspectors for not checking their samples or giving good samples for testing purpose to boost the statistics or destroying the samples at the lab level or in the courts are routinely practiced. Using such harsh punishment threats, extortion also is possible to increase the "haftha" rate! One may ask why this pessimism on a good intentioned policy pronouncement by the government? Answer is simple. Indians are Indians and their attitude, behavior, respect for law, civic sense, moral responsibility etc are debatable with very few bothered about things beyond their immediate families! Only some genuine NGOs are fighting this food adulteration battle but they are far and few to make any dent on the scale of corruption and insensitivity prevalent among politicians and bureaucrats in this country.. Let us hope Delhi government will succeed where others have miserably failed the people of India.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

Apathy, thy name is FSSAI!-The Hyderabad "case"!

A recent report from Hyderabad regarding the food safety mess that is prevalent there makes a pathetic reading. A city where there are more than 20,000 eateries, monitoring of the quality of foods prepared and served there rarely occurs though the civic authorities are supposed to have qualified inspectors for inspecting the premises, sampling of the foods, testing them and ensuring consumer safety on a regular basis. Unfortunately the ground reality that is obtaining in this historical city is indeed shocking. Though the food safety act stipulates a certain number of inspectors and adequate testing facilities this city does not seem to be too much concerned about lack of them to meet the challenge.Passing on the buck seems to be the order of the day. While the civic authorities blame the state administration for neglecting their needs in providing necessary facilities and personnel, latter puts the ball in the court of the center for unclear laws and less than optimal resources allocated to the state. When a pompous Authority called FSSAI was foisted on the states, it was promised that center would provide all the assistance required to implement the new food laws. Unfortunately nothing seems to have changed after the formation of FSSAI which turned out to be a license giving authority, a call back of the old permit - license raj that existed before the economic liberalization started in early nineteen nineties! Here is a take on this sorrow state of affairs vis-vis food safety realities in Hyderabad, though same may apply to all places across the country.   .  

"According to the Food Safety and Standard Act, 2011, the civic body should have at least two inspectors for every circle (one in case of a small circle) to monitor the food quality in hotels and collect samples for examinations. Licences to caterers should only be given after a standard quality test is done, but this regulation is not followed. In 2010, only 45 cases were booked, 54 in 2011, 135 on 2012, 144 in 2013 and 256 in 2014. The number of eateries in the city is more than 20,000.  The civic body, incidentally, does not even have its own laboratory to carry out any of these tests. Instead, it depends on the Institute of Preventive Measures. The Act states the city administration should have adequate number of food safety officers to monitor all food establishments, draw samples for analysis and surveillance, act against unsafe food and ensure that food poisoning or similar problems do not occur. Owing to the staff crunch, the state's food testing laboratory at Nacharam tests just about 500-600 samples in a month collected from the entire state. Less than 200 are from Hyderabad, while the lab can test up to 2,000 to 2,500 samples per month. Officials rue that GHMC has no facilities to check food quality. Meanwhile, more than 3,000 cases related to food quality issues are pending in courts. Some of them have been running for the past 15 years. These cases ensure that the food inspectors are busy attending court proceedings instead of performing their actual duties. As per the rule, hotels violating norms are supposed to be fined and even closed down. There is a separate magistrate's court for these cases. Following the Food Safety Act, the corporation, during inspections, first checks the manner in which the food is cooked (taking samples of the materials used), then the way it is served and stored".

An interesting revelation that must shame all Indians is the long drawn legal cases, numbering about 3000, pending before the courts without any judgment and the time wasted by the food inspectors in dealing with these cases some of them pending for more than 20 years! It appears that there is a collusion between the lawyer community, accused parties and the food inspection personnel to prolong the cases so that indictment can be postponed almost indefinitely under such an arrangement! It is more than 4 years since the food safety act was implemented and if FSSAI could not put in place a satisfactory infrastructural facilities to implement the law, does it justify its existence at all? Are the citizens left to the mercy of petty traders, unorganized food makers and big players of the industry who break every conceivable rule with such impunity for ever with no hope of salvation? Probably the FSSAI as it operates to day needs drastic changes to make the entire system more reliable and accountable. Is the country with a political class with practically no vision about future ready for it? Doubtful! This "no win" situation is bound to continue leaving the consumers at the mercy of manufacturers, traders and hoteliers for a long time to come making citizens turn to God for protecting them and their families from food related dangers every day!

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

Food safety bill being "dressed up"- Will the Indian citizen ever be freed from consuming unsafe and substandard foods?

How serious is the federal government in India in safeguarding the health of its citizens? If past history is any indication all programs and activities emanating from Delhi have been focusing on rehabilitating the bureaucrats rather than putting in place a deterrent regime to punish adultrators and fraudsters who are violating even the diluted food standards with impunity without getting punished for their heinous crimes. With great fanfare the food safety act was promulgated by the previous government, a toothless body called food authority was set up and a technically "innocent" bureaucrat was promptly appointed as its chairman! Rest is history. Though maintaining the food quality and insuring food against adultration and fraud is a state subject, federal government comes into the picture for bringing in a uniform quality and safety frame work for the states to work in harmony. With strictures being passed by judicial courts one after the other during the last 2-3 years on the deficiencies of the act, it is a welcome development that the new government is mulling over its modifications seriously. Whether this exercise will end up producing a "mouse" at the end remains to be seen. Read further below regarding this development at Delhi. 

"The Government will revisit the food safety Act to make it more stringent to check growing instances of adulteration and contamination. "Two days ago, we set up a task force, which will submit its suggestions in 45 days, which will be then be put up in public domain for inviting comments. Imported food items will also be covered by this," Health Minister JP Nadda informed the Lok Sabha on Monday. Replying to a calling by PV Midhun Reddy of YSR Cong and Satyapal Singh of BJP, Nadda admitted that food adulteration and contamination were one reason for the rising burden of non-communicable diseases across the country. "It is also proposed to revisit the punishment stipulated for milk adulteration and make it more stringent," Nadda said, adding that the Government would focus creating infrastructure and manpower to face the challenge, such as setting up testing labs under public-private partnership. Nadda further added that 13,571 out of 72,200 food samples analysed in 2013-14 were adulterated, resulting in launch of 10,325 civil and criminal cases. He also informed the House that the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India was at present engaged in an exercise for harmonisation of the maximum residue limit of pesticides in food commodities. Earlier, Reddy said the threat from adulteration and contamination of water, milk, oil, etc, was "greater than the threat from terrorism", as it would take more lives in the long run. Terming the unregulated use of pesticides and antibiotics as "slow poison" and the use of hormone injections on cows to increase milk yield, as a more "serious crime than cow slaughter", Reddy particularly urged the Government to ensure "Shudh Bharat" (Pure India)" along with the initiative, "Swachch Bharat." 

The statistics put out by the minister tells a pathetic story about the safety programs of the government. In a country like India with a population of 1.2 billion the number of samples picked up for testing was relatively small working out to 200 samples a day across 30 states, again a paltry 7 samples per state! One wonders what type of inspection thousands of so called "Food Inspectors" in the pay roll of the states are doing if not checking foods in the market for quality and safety violations? Has the surveillance system in the country failed miserably? This is all the more appalling considering that more than 70% of food industry is in the hands of the so called "unorganized sector" which produces hundreds of diverse products with indifferent quality and safety credentials. When an enlightened law maker from Andhra Pradesh stated that adultrated foods pose much greater threat to the country than that posed by terrorists, we have to applaud him for stating the obvious. . 

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com