Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) Maharashtra officials directed several coffee shops and other eateries in Nagpur to down their shutters, because they did not possess valid licenses under the Food Safety and Standards Act (FSSA), 2006. Some of these had recently opened. They also started a registration drive on April 17, 2012, and appealed to all food business operators (FBO) in the city to get registered within the next fifteen days.
S B Naragude was the designated officer, under whose guidance a team of food safety officers (FSO) raided the premises of the errant establishments. The people involved in running them were warned that they would remain closed unless and until they obtain and display a license or registration number in the stipulated period. The FSO also expected petty vendors and other small-scale FBO to adhere to the same, and residents of the city to co-operate with them.
A report on the FDA's crackdown on these eateries appeared in a leading English daily in Nagpur. Tejinder Singh Renu, honorary secretary, Vidarbha Taxpayers' Association (VTA) and Nagpur Residential Hotels Association (NRHA), was critical of a number of provisions of FSSA, which he claims are not just harsh, but also “practically impossible to follow”.
“The court will take its summer vacation shortly. By the time it reopens, I hope more parties would have come forward with their objections to certain sections of the Act (especially Sections 51 to 60, which blatantly promote corruption). Food safety officers charge food business operators heavy penalties, and if they don't pay them, they are forced to shut down their businesses,” he said.
S B Naragude was the designated officer, under whose guidance a team of food safety officers (FSO) raided the premises of the errant establishments. The people involved in running them were warned that they would remain closed unless and until they obtain and display a license or registration number in the stipulated period. The FSO also expected petty vendors and other small-scale FBO to adhere to the same, and residents of the city to co-operate with them.
A report on the FDA's crackdown on these eateries appeared in a leading English daily in Nagpur. Tejinder Singh Renu, honorary secretary, Vidarbha Taxpayers' Association (VTA) and Nagpur Residential Hotels Association (NRHA), was critical of a number of provisions of FSSA, which he claims are not just harsh, but also “practically impossible to follow”.
“The court will take its summer vacation shortly. By the time it reopens, I hope more parties would have come forward with their objections to certain sections of the Act (especially Sections 51 to 60, which blatantly promote corruption). Food safety officers charge food business operators heavy penalties, and if they don't pay them, they are forced to shut down their businesses,” he said.
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