KHRA unwilling to obey food safety norms, HC told

The state government has submitted before the Kerala High Court that the Kerala Hotel and Restaurants Association who approached the court wish to conduct their business without the legal intervention of any authority and according to their whims and fancies.
The Food Safety Joint-Commissioner (Administrative and Legal) K Anil Kumar said that the KHRA members are unwilling to obey laws and wish for a lawless situation and it should not be allowed by the court.
The state filed the statement on a petition by KHRA challenging the conditions in the Food Safety and Standards Act.
The Joint-Commissioner said that the measures were initiated in the wake of the incident wherein a person died because of the food poison caused by stale shawarma.
 He said that the condition of many hotels, where raids were conducted, was highly pathetic and such hotels were served notices to close down till steps are taken to ensure improved hygienic conditions. The state also produced the video clippings of the hotels functioning in unhygienic manner.  Food Safety Standards Act was brought in at the request of the traders who wanted to replace the previous PFA Act. Hundreds of traders were sent to jail for violations of the provisions of the PFA Act.  To avoid such a situation, the new FSS Act has been brought in. After the shawarma incident, strict guidelines were issued to maintain the hygienic standard.

Food joints license renewal hit by slow pace

INDORE: Despite continuous extension of deadlines to renew the license for last one and half years, only 2,500 have applied for the same against 8,000 odd licenses of food joints which were issued by Indore Municipal Corporation.

After the implementation of food safety and standards Act 2006, it has been made mandatory for the eatery owners to have license from food and drug administration department. The act was implemented in August 2011 in Madhya Pradesh and the department set a target to complete all renewal work till August 2012. They again extended the target for two months but people did not come. Now, food and drug administration department has decided to complete the task till February, 2013.

Food safety officer Manish Swami told media persons that the department issues around 50-60 licenses everyday on an average but till now only around 2,500 have applied. The department has issued around 1,600 licenses against the applications received.

Meanwhile, the process of registering the petty vendors, including the milkman and others like a small food stall owners, is also underway, he added.

Swami further said that till date around 1,000 milkman have applied for registration and the process is nearly complete for around 800, besides the other vendors including small food stall owners have also applied for registration.

Interestingly, despite the fact that only 1500 small food stall owners were registered with IMC till date, but due to awareness, the low registration fee and simple process of the registration, the department has received applications from around 3,000 such vendors, Swami said.

Swami further said that it is basically the big eatery owners who were having licenses from IMC and are not turning up in adequate numbers.

Sources said that the date of making the licenses mandatory for the eatery owners has now been extended for more two months and it will now be mandatory to have licenses under the after February 2012.

The Act is being considered in its nascent stage but once the deadline for getting license is over, we would initiate strict action against those who are operating without licenses from food and drug administration, he added.

Plea to rectify anomalies in Food Safety Act - THE HINDU

The Tamil Nadu Foodgrains Merchants Association has requested Union Health Minister Gulam Nabi Azad to rectify certain issues in the Food Safety and Standards Act.

An association delegation led by its president S. P. Jeyapragasam and accompanied by Tamil Nadu Hotels Association president M. Venkatasubbu, Union Minister of State for Prime Minister’s Office V. Narayanasamy and Dindigul MP N. S. V. Chitthan met the Health Minister at New Delhi recently and submitted a memorandum pressing various demands.

While welcoming several regulations in the Food Safety Act, which was passed in the Parliament in 2006 and notified in 2011, Mr. Jeyapragasam said that the standards for some food products were pegged at levels originally fixed in 1954. These could not be followed now as farming practices has changed considerably since then.

The Associations also called for a reconsideration of the penalties provided for in the new Act, which replaced the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act.

The Food Safety Act levied penalties in the range of Rs. 1 lakh to Rs. 10 lakh besides prescribing jail terms ranging between six months to ten years. The trade bodies called for the Act not to be implemented till such time its problems were reviewed and rectified.

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India has been established under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 as a statutory body for laying down science based standards for articles of food and regulating manufacturing, processing, distribution, sale and import of food.

Rs 8,000 realized from milk vendors

Doda, Dec 03: To ensure safe and unadulterated availability of  milk in Doda, Bhaderwah and its adjoining areas, Additional District Commissioner, Doda,  G.N Balwan, who is also Adjudicating Officer under Food Safety and Standard Act 2006 conducted a raid upon milk vendors at various places in Doda and Bhaderwah .
During the raid,  Balwan imposed a fine of Rs. 8,000 upon the milk vendors for supplying sub-standard milk to the public. The fine imposed under Sec. 52 of Food Safety and Standard Act 2006 was collected on spot from the milk vendors.
He gave strict instructions to the vendors to refrain from supplying sub-standard milk to the public otherwise strict action as warranted against defaulters shall be initiated.