Dec 20, 2017
FSSAI to check quality of food in hospitals, healthcare facilities
FSSAI wants hospitals and to follow food safety standards prescribed by the regulator
New Delhi: India’s food safety regulator has turned its sights towards hospitals and other healthcare facilities to ensure they serve safe and nutritious food.
The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), which already has oversight of food consumed in households, offices and even places of worship, wants public health institutions to follow safety standards prescribed by the regulator.
In the first step, the FSSAI will organize a round-table meeting of health ministers from the states. The event will be chaired by Union health and family welfare minister Jagat Prakash Nadda, said FSSAI chief executive officer (CEO) Pawan Kumar Agarwal.
“Next month, we are holding this round table,” Agarwal said, adding that research by regulator has identified food served in hospitals as “potentially hazardous.”
According to FSSAI, people visiting hospitals are more susceptible to food-borne illnesses than the general population. Food contamination by pathogens could be particularly harmful. In fact, small numbers of enteric pathogens that may be innocuous to most healthy people can cause disease and even death in susceptible patients, especially immune-compromised subjects, the food regulator recently said in a note.
India has 35,416 government hospitals with around 1.37 million beds, according to directorate general of state health services data. Of these, 26,604 government hospitals are located in rural areas. Each of these hospitals has a canteen that serves food to patients.
Agarwal said food handlers at hospitals should be trained on food hygiene and hazard analysis and critical control points to ensure food safety.
As part of its agenda of ensuring safe and nutritious food at hospitals, the food regulator has already partnered with industry bodies such as the Indian Medical Association, Indian Dietetics Association, Nutrition Society of India, Indian Pharmaceutical Association, Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences, National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers, the National Health Mission, and some government health organisations.
This is not the first time FSSAI is trying to ensure food safety and nutrition in a public system. In February, FSSAI said it had teamed up with the ministry of women and child development and drafted a plan to make supply of fortified food mandatory in government-supported schemes such as mid-day meals, Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), and the Public Distribution System (PDS), in an attempt to fight malnutrition, Mint reported on 2 February.
CAG: Quality of food testing laboratories suspect
India's food certification process came under the scanner on Tuesday with the Comptroller and Auditor General showing that as many as 65 of the 72 testing laboratories are functioning without an accreditation from the official agency.
The same is true for eight of the 16 referral laboratories that operate without a certificate from the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration.
"The quality of testing by 65 out of 72 state food laboratories and 8 of the 16 referral laboratories can't be assured," the CAG said in its report tabled in Parliament. Most of these laboratories are state-level units.
The government auditor also pulled up the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India for its failure to stop import of unsafe food.
The CAG said it found licences were issued on the basis of incomplete documents in more than 50% of cases.
A test check of five state licensing authorities and three central licensing authorities found that in 3,119 out of 5,915 test checked cases, licences had been issued to the food business operators on the basis of incomplete documents. As many as 15 out of the 16 test checked food laboratories did not have qualified food analysts.
The Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 came nearly a decade ago in order to consolidate multiple laws related to food safety and to put in place an effective regulator.
But even after a decade of enactment of the legislation, the Union Health Ministry and FSSAI failed to finalise the recruitment rules, leading to acute shortage of regular staff at various levels because of which the FSSAI made unauthorised appointments on contract.
The ministry sanctioned 356 posts for FSSAI at various levels, out of which there are only 115 regular staff as on December 2016. FSSAI appointed 261 contractual staff who run the lion's share of the food regulator's regular work.
To test whether the penalty is collected from violators, the auditor test checked 10 cases between 2011 and 2016 in which nearly Rs 13 crore penalty was imposed on the food business operators. Around Rs 7 crore was deposited by the operators to the FSSAI, but the agency failed to retrieve the balance Rs 6 crore.
CAG raps FSSAI over licencing process, poor food testing labs
The CAG report said FSSAI issued licences to food manufacturers on the basis of incomplete documents in more than 50% of cases checked in the audit
The CAG report said that neither FSSAI nor the state food authorities had documented policies and procedures on risk based inspections, and the FSSAI does not have any database on the food business. Photo: Ramesh Pathania/Mint
New Delhi: The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has slammed the food safety regulator Food Safety and Standards Authority (FSSAI) in a performance audit report released on Tuesday.
The CAG performance audit report said FSSAI issued licences to food manufacturers on the basis of incomplete documents in more than 50% of cases checked in the audit.
The audit on food safety was taken up to assess the performance of the ministry of health and family welfare, FSSAI and food regulatory authorities in 10 selected states.
The report said that neither FSSAI nor the state food authorities had documented policies and procedures on risk based inspections, and the FSSAI does not have any database on the food business. FSSAI has failed to ensure that the customs authorities follow up on the non-conformance reports issued by the FSSAI itself and take appropriate action to ensure that unsafe foods do not enter the country, it said.
The CAG held that food safety covers the entire food chain, and includes the stages of manufacturing or preparation, handling, transportation and storage of food in ways that prevent contamination and food-borne diseases. Any relaxation of food safety standards and their enforcement may lead to proliferation of illegal, dishonest manufacturers and suppliers, which is detrimental to public health.
“At least 65 out of the 72 state food laboratories to which FSSAI and state food safety authorities sent food samples for testing do not possess National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL) accreditation. Consequently, the quality of testing by these laboratories cannot be assured,” the CAG report said.
The report highlighted that FSSAI has no data on public analysts declared eligible under the erstwhile Prevention of Food Adulteration Act who continue to function under the FSS Act. FSSAI also has no data on whether all the notified empanelled food laboratories have qualified food analysts. Audit test checks found that 15 out of the 16 test checked food laboratories did not have qualified food analysts, it said.
“Shortage of qualified manpower and functional food testing equipment in state food laboratories and referral laboratories resulted in deficient testing of food samples. There were significant delays in finalization of cases by Adjudicating Officers. Further, a significant portion of the penalty imposed remained uncollected,” the report said.
Slack food safety could be risking public health: CAG
Audit report says most food testing labs in country are ill-equipped.
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), India’s constitutionally mandated federal auditor, has cited serious lapses in enforcing food-safety norms in the country, which, it said, could be putting public health at risk.
A majority of the country’s food-testing laboratories were poorly managed, the report said. It found that 65 of the 72 state-wide food laboratories were not accredited to the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL), as required. “Consequently, the quality of testing by these laboratories cannot be assured,” the CAG report said. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), the national regulator, relies on these laboratories to confirm safety of food items.
Over 50% of licenses granted to manufacturers were issued on the basis of incomplete documents, which suggests they may not be fully complying with safety standards. From popular snacks to savouries, all foods found in stores possess the FSSAI’s licences.
In 2014, a state-level food laboratory in Uttar Pradesh’s Gorakhpur had found Swedish food giant Nestlé SA’s popular instant noodles brand, Maggi, to be unsafe. Nestlé SA had, at the time, claimed its product was safe and that there were “issues of interpretation” by Indian food inspectors. Samples tested were found to contain monosodium glutamate or MSG in Maggi.
The samples were then sent to the Kolkata-based Central Food Laboratory in June 2014. The Kolkata lab took almost a year to come out with a verdict, which said the samples not only contained MSG but also lead. This prompted the FSSAI to order a recall of Maggi in June 2015.
“Most of the state food laboratories entrusted with food testing and certification functions, were not only ill-equipped but also did not possess the NABL accreditation,” the CAG report states.
A range of issues afflicts these laboratories, including lack of trained manpower, which hampered “effective fixing of science based food standards and their enforcement”. The FSSAI’s office did not respond to queries on the CAG report, including an email sent to the CEO’s office.
“Governance lapses could mean a lot of ineligible and unsafe products could be floating around. The other aspect is technical, namely proper calibration of laboratories,” said Anurag Sharma, a former food-standards consultant to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation.
“Any relaxation of food-safety standards and their enforcement may lead to proliferation of illegal, dishonest manufacturers and suppliers, which is detrimental to public health,” the CAG said.
It said the enforcement aspects of the FSSAI were slack, including activities related to licensing, registration, inspection, sampling and prosecution. The FSSAI, according to the audit, had also failed to finalise recruitment regulations and there were irregularities in the appointment of contractual employees. Until the enactment of the Food Safety Act, 2006, the main legislation that governed food safety was the archaic Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954.
CAG slams FSSAI over lapses in enforcing food safety
New Delhi, Dec 19 (IANS) The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has come down heavily on the Union Health Ministry and its body FSSAI for not framing regulations governing various procedures, guidelines and mechanisms in line with the provisions of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006.
As per the top audit body's observations, there is a possibility that unsafe/declared unsafe food articles continued to be manufactured and sold due to the failure of the authorities to monitor and cancel licences.
"Audit observed that even after withdrawal of NOCs (no-Objection Certificates), there was no mechanism to ensure that the licences issued on the basis of the withdrawn NOCs were cancelled," said the report.
The audit body found that licences were issued on the basis of incomplete documents in more than 50 per cent of the cases test-checked in the audit.
"Neither FSSAI (Food Safety and Standards Authority of India) nor the state food authorities have documented policies and procedures on risk-based inspections, and the FSSAI does not have any data base on food business," said the audit report.
According to the CAG, 65 out of the 72 state food laboratories to which FSSAI and state food safety authorities sent food samples for testing do not have the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL)'s accreditation, due to which the quality of testing by these laboratories could not be assured.
It observed that between January 2012 and May 2013, the FSSAI issued, without the approval of the ministry, a series of advisories covering the category of proprietary foods, which had been defined as articles of food and for which standards had not been specified.
The CAG has also questioned the continuation of licences issued in terms of flawed NOC procedure.
"Audit observed occasions where the NOCs issued by the product approval divisions had to be withdrawn because the application for product approval for a similar or identical product was denied by the scientific committees/scientific panels," said the audit report, adding that it was, therefore, evident that the FSSAI permitted possibly unsafe foods to be manufactured, distributed, sold or imported in the country.
The CAG observed that though the NOCs were valid only for a maximum period of one year, the FSSAI did not ensure that the licences issued on the basis of these NOCs were accordingly valid for the same period.
"Further, after withdrawal of the NOCs, FSSAI did not ensure that the Central Licence Authorities also cancelled the licences that had been issued on the basis of the now-withdrawn NOCs and also that the food business operators had stopped the manufacture, distribution and sale of such products."
Stating that there was a failure of the ministry and the FSSAI in framing the recruitment regulation even after a decade of the enactment of the act, the CAG observed that there was an acute shortage of licencing and enforcement officers in the states, severely affecting the food safety measures.
Parliament enacted the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 to overcome the difficulties and to consolidate and subsume the existing acts and orders and establish a single-point reference system -- FSSAI.
The body was to lay guidelines, science-based standards and regulate the manufacture, storage, distribution and sale of food products.
The CAG also found matters pertaining to non-refund of product approval fees in the audit report.
"Audit observed that though 1,876 applications for product approval were pending with FSSAI after the Supreme Court judgment, FSSAI has not refunded Rs 4.69 crore to the applicants," the report said.
Among other issues related to the food regulatory, the CAG observed that there were deficiencies in the procedure by food safety authorities in sample handling and failure in monitoring the status of receipts of samples sent for analysis.
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