Clearance for imported food items in India can be based on Japanese model

Delay in obtaining clearance for imported food items is a major problem for the importers, who have time and again tried to bring the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India's (FSSAI) attention to the issue. This was informed by Pankaj Shah, vice-president, the Bombay Custom House Agents' Association.

"The total time taken for clearance of imported food items is anywhere between five to 10 days, as sample testing itself needs five days. We have repeatedly approached the Authority on the issue but in vain. However, one good thing happened is that procedure for clearance has been placed online, which reduced our effort in approaching the authority a number of times," said Shah.

The situation is aggravating also because there is not enough infrastructure backup for storage of imported food items. Items which do not come in reefer vessels lie in open.

One suggestion made by Shah to the Authority was that the samples to be tested should be sent to those labs which were in the port area itself. "As Nhava Sheva port, where the imported food items land, is very far from the city, bringing the samples from there to the laboratory itself takes a day or two. If the lab is in the vicinity itself at least a day would be saved," he said.

Pankaj Jaiminy, assistant vice-president, food, health and beauty, TUV SUD South Asia, had another suggestion. He said clearance model akin to Japan could be adopted in India.

"Imported food items are cleared in Japan in a day or two, however, Indian imports take minimum five days. The system for testing of imported food items needs to be evaluated for workload.
The system adopted in Japan can be easily adopted by India for testing imported food items," Jaiminy said.

Interestingly, Japan is able to deliver results for testing of imported food items within a day or two. This is because it has approved different labs in the exporting countries. On arrival of import it would ask for the lab report from the exporting country. Then, Japanese authorities simply do a random sample testing for food items instead of testing each and every product. If the result of the sample tested does not match with that in the report received, the matter is reported to the Export Inspection Council which in turn issues an alert warning or suspends the services of the approved lab for time being.

Meanwhile, a delegation is sent to inspect the operations of the lab and the food business in the exporting country. This way cross and balances are maintained, informed Jaiminy.