NEW HOPE FOR CONSUMERS IN INDIA-FOOD SAFETY VIOLATIONS AND DETERRENT

Currently the food safety administration in India is supposed to be streamlined under the integrated regime "powered" by FSSAI. No doubt the law as it is documented in the Statute Books provides hope to the consumer that future can bode well for them with potential adulterators and fraudsters being deterred by the harsh penalty proposed and the expeditious disposal mechanism suggested to deal with   such cases. Industry also should not have any major complaint if the legal provisions are enforced honestly and unscrupulously. The real problem is the time taken to set up the necessary infrastructure to implement the law in letter and spirit considering that the implementing apparatus supposed to be under the State government is just pathetic if not ridiculous. Almost every day there are reports appearing in the news papers regarding the impotency of the state machinery to bring to books culprits caught meddling with food standards and getting away scot-free due to one reason or the other. Here is a report about the system that is being put in place to "manage" food safety in the country.

'With the much-awaited transition from a plethora of food laws and manifold control points to the single-integrated Food Safety and Standards Act 2006 (hereinafter referred to as FSSA) regime, there has been a critical shift in the process of adjudication as well envisioning expeditious disposal of cases related to food safety issues.  Special courts, summary trials and appellate tribunal have been provided for. The Food Safety and Standards Rules, 2011, deals inter alia with adjudication proceedings, procedure for appeal to tribunal, qualification of the presiding officer of the tribunal etc. Five judicial forums for trial / adjudication have been provided for under the FSSA and Rules thereunder - Adjudicating Officer, Food Safety Appellate Tribunal, Judicial Magistrate of the First Class / Metropolitan Magistrate, Special Court and the High Court".

As long as the FSSAI does not have power and capacity to prosecute food criminals it is unlikely that any one will be indicted as has been happening in the past. It is not a secret that under the corrupt system involved in "catching" safety violators, very few cases reach the corridors of the Court and when ever some culprits are hauled up they get away easily through "well heeled" tricks perpetuated by experienced lawyers.  What about the Laboratories that analyze the samples as and when they are brought before them? Here again "experienced" agents are reported to be able to "fix" the results. Of course these are not documented any where to prove these allegations as these are done  mostly through  "understanding"  and "faith" and therefore very difficult to be proved for prosecuting the "abettors of the crime". To hope that the system will change with the new Act and the new Authority may just be day dreaming! Unless honesty is restored among the officials administering the Safety Law, India will continue to plod along pretending that every thing is fine with the quality and safety of food offered to the hapless citizens of the country.

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

NAMING AND SHAMING-DOES IT REALLY WORK?

"Shame" is a powerful emotional trauma many people find it hard to face, according to human psychologists and there are many instances when shame has driven affected people to even committing suicide. How ever percentage of people who are sensitive to shame is progressively declining and with political landscape in many countries becoming breeding grounds for corrupt and shameless political and business classes, the word shame may lose its relevance eventually. While we have instances like students and farmers committing suicide because of their inability to face humiliation due to examination performance or unbearable debt burden, there are shameless people who are not unduly concerned about criminal indictment, breaking of law, corruption scandals or moral turpitude. Therefore it is surprising as to how the Canadian food authorities have come to the conclusion that naming and shaming of food law violators would desist them from committing same crime again. One has to really see how this new system will be able to reduce the incidences of food safety violations in future.

"In a switch of policy, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency this week began publishing details of its law-enforcement activities on its website. While the federal agency used to publish the names of individuals and businesses that had been successfully prosecuted for breaching its rules, it now will name entities involved in CFIA investigations. The new policy kicked in on March 16 as part of what CFIA senior media relations officer Guy Gravelle termed an "ongoing transparency initiative." It has published this information for the months April 1 to Dec. 31, 2010. Gravelle explained that the rationale for the change in policy reflected the federal government's commitment "to providing consumers with information on enforcement action being taken to protect the safety of their food supply, and the animal and plant resource base upon which safe food depends." He said the agency "is committed to delivering on its mandate in an open and accountable way while continuing to work closely with the Canadian food industry to ensure they have clear guidance on how to achieve compliance."

Though Canadian government may be confident about the moral standards of their citizens based on which the new policy was evolved, it is doubtful whether such deterrent policies will ever work in a country like India where most politicians and bureaucrats are considered corrupt. Once the veneer of respectability is removed due to any incidence involving violation of societal norms, the tendency is to become more and more hardened culprits/criminals with practically no shame left. More over naming the culprits in the web site of the food safety agency may have exposure only to a few hundred people in a country with more than one billion population, the net effect being practically nil. Under such an environment strong penal action and cancelling the production license only will work as a deterrent, though here also a weak organization like FSSAI in India is not equipped to punish real criminals in the food sector who commit their food crimes with full impunity!

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