Plea to rectify anomalies in Food Safety Act - THE HINDU

The Tamil Nadu Foodgrains Merchants Association has requested Union Health Minister Gulam Nabi Azad to rectify certain issues in the Food Safety and Standards Act.

An association delegation led by its president S. P. Jeyapragasam and accompanied by Tamil Nadu Hotels Association president M. Venkatasubbu, Union Minister of State for Prime Minister’s Office V. Narayanasamy and Dindigul MP N. S. V. Chitthan met the Health Minister at New Delhi recently and submitted a memorandum pressing various demands.

While welcoming several regulations in the Food Safety Act, which was passed in the Parliament in 2006 and notified in 2011, Mr. Jeyapragasam said that the standards for some food products were pegged at levels originally fixed in 1954. These could not be followed now as farming practices has changed considerably since then.

The Associations also called for a reconsideration of the penalties provided for in the new Act, which replaced the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act.

The Food Safety Act levied penalties in the range of Rs. 1 lakh to Rs. 10 lakh besides prescribing jail terms ranging between six months to ten years. The trade bodies called for the Act not to be implemented till such time its problems were reviewed and rectified.

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India has been established under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 as a statutory body for laying down science based standards for articles of food and regulating manufacturing, processing, distribution, sale and import of food.