Madurai: The Tamil Nadu Foodgrains Merchants Association urged the chief executive officer of FSSAI, Pawan Kumar Agarwal, to take steps to issue a single licence for all branches and facilities owned by a Food Business Operator (FBO), reducing the owners the hassle of renewing multiple licences whenever needed.
At present, separate licences need to be obtained under the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India Act for various facilities such as factories, godowns, manufacturing units, vehicles and registered offices, said president of the association S P Jeyapragasan. He read out a charter of demands on the sidelines of a discussion meet held between stakeholders on Monday.
The association demanded exemption from Food Safety Training and Certification, which the FBOs are supposed to undergo for GST reasons. The association also sought the validity of the certificate to be extended from one year to five years. Members of the association demanded that the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, rules and regulations of 2011 be published in all regional languages including Tamil for easy understanding.
They sought the CEO to allow coriander farmers to continue with their traditional way of fumigating the harvest with sulphur, which will give a longer shelf life, till a new fumigation method is found by the department.
The FSSAI was urged to take methods to distinguish pure jaggery and palmyrah jaggery from those mixed with white sugar in the market. “With the sugar content in pure jaggery and palmyrah jaggery not meeting the standards of FSSAI, white sugar is added to them,” a trader said, adding that it was important to differentiate between them with markings.
Another demand put forth by the traders was to mellow down action on unintentional mistakes made while labelling products. “Instead of punishing for the offence, the FBO must be served with an improvement notice. Action should be taken only if the FBO has deliberately committed a mistake,” a member said.
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