State no-show at licence mela

Dec 22: A daylong workshop-cum-licensing mela organised at Ranchi today turned out to be a dud as no officials from the state government turned up at the Federation of Jharkhand Chamber of Commerce and Industries (FJCCI) auditorium, the venue for the event.

Though the event, which was supposed to give on-spot registration to the traders, had been advertised through newspapers, state food controller T.P. Barnwal claimed that they had not been intimated about the event and hence were technically not supposed to be a part of it.

"We should have been informed officially if the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSI) ' which held the mela ' wanted our presence there," Barnwal said.

S.N. Mitra, senior inspecting officer of Calcutta-based FSSI , which is the Centre's nodal agency for quality control and monitoring, held the mela today to brief the traders about the guidelines they needed to adhere to for licensing and registration of food business operations as made mandatory by the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006.

As per the Act, all companies, vendors, hawkers or transporters involved in the food business had to get their license or registration by February 4, 2013.

However, a major bone of contention among the traders has been the non-or-slow process of registration.

"The state has to issue close to 3lakh licenses. It has barely issued 3,000 till date," said Pradeep Jain, secretary-general of FJCCI.

He added that the state government was not even equipped with proper labs to check the quality of food products.