Tribunal to keep watch on street food

AHMEDABAD: The Gujarati foodie with an elephantine appetite needs to know how much calories one shoves in with that lip- smacking, enticing and chatpata street food, becoming fast consumables these days. Equally important is to find out the nutritional value of the barrage of locally packaged food.

The city for this purpose will have the state's first food safety tribunal which will not only provide teeth to food safety inspectors to keep quality checks on food sold in the city but also nail defaulters who make false claims about nutritional value of their products. The tribunal will be set up within the next two months.
The tribunal will look into cases where defaulters are caught selling food not of the nature or substance or quality as was demanded. It will also hear cases of substandard and misbranded food and misleading advertisements. "Food containing adulterants, unsanitary processing or manufacturing of food, offences by companies and compensation in case of injury or death of consumer among others are few of the cases that the tribunal will look into. We are integrating the municipal health machinery into the system," said the food & drugs control administration commissioner H G Koshia.
The state government has already approved the post of a presiding officer, chaired by a retired district judge and six other posts. The tribunal has become mandatory with the Food Safety and Standards Rules, 2011 being implemented. Food safety inspectors are being trained by Food Safety Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) officers with short-term chemical tests that can reveal adulterants in food instantaneously. Food inspectors of municipal corporations and the food and drugs department are part of this exercise.
"Working of the tribunal will not clash with consumer courts as they deal with special issues. The tribunal is purely for enforcement purposes and an appellate body for those who have been penalized by our officers," Koshia added.

Respondent to petition cannot act on impugned FSSA provisions: Madras HC

It has been yet another eventful week for the Madurai-based Tamil Nadu Food Grains Merchants' Association (represented by S V S S Velsankar, its honorary secretary), who filed a petition against the Union of India (represented by the ministry of health and family welfare's secretary to the government) before the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court.

In an e-mail sent by R Kaleeswaran, honorary secretary, Karaikudi Bakery Owners' Association (KBOA), it is seen that the Madras High Court has passed an order of an ad-interim injunction constraining the respondent (Union of India), its men and agents from giving effect to the impugned provisions of the Food Safety and Standards Act (FSSA), 2006; Food Safety and Standards Rules, 2011, and the respective Regulations, 2011. "They cannot act on Sections 3 (1) (u); (za); (zf); 5 (1) (a); 13; 14; 23; 31; 40; 50 to 65 and 77 of the FSSA, 2006," he said.

Of late, this battle for justice for small food business operators in the south Indian state has taken other interesting turns too. "Assem Chaudhary, director, administration, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), arrived in Madurai this week and we had a fruitful discussion. In fact, he said the FSSAI would like to be a co-respondent to the petition we filed," Velsankar told over the telephone.

He added, "We have invited Chaudhary to visit Madurai again, accompanied by K Chandramouli, the chairman of the authority. He has agreed to come here and engage in talks with different trade bodies from across the state." Before signing off, Velsankar stated that he and a trade delegation from Tamil Nadu, accompanied by the members of Parliament from Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, are headed to New Delhi next month to meet FSSAI officials.

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