Will Mumbai Street Food Become Hygienic?

Mumbai’s a good city for street food fiends like me. I have a favourite sandwichwala; I’ve been going to the same spots for my pani puri fix for decades; and I’m devoted to the tangy taste of ferment in a good street-side dosa. Do I go to these places because they are clean? Not quite. I follow flavour first and choose to ignore most things unless they make me retch. Open drains, grimy work surfaces, water of suspect origin in our favourite green chutney, scrap paper as an eating vessel – these are intrinsic to this city’s street food culture. Millions of people eat off the street, and I’d like to believe that our immunity is better for it. I have seen rats scuttle across counters at both fancy restaurants and kathi roll stalls, often after I have finished my meals there. Poor hygiene is a Mumbai problem and it permeates everything.

Over the last few years, the government has been trying to implement clearer and better food safety standards through regulations and laws. The Food Safety Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) was set up in 2006 under the Food Safety and Standards Act (FSSA). The Act was enforced on August 5, 2011, and the deadline to implement it (after many extensions) was earlier this week on February 4. All food business operators (FBOs) across the country were supposed to register and obtain a licence under the Act by this date. A couple of weeks ago, Maharashtra’s Food and Drug Administration commissioner Mahesh Zagade told the newspaper DNA that “February 4 is the last date set by the central government to obtain licences or registration by the FBOs [food business operators], failing which they will be prosecuted under the law.” On Tuesday, we found out that this wasn’t set in stone – the deadline has been extended by another six months.

I have serious reservations about it being implemented then, or even a year later. The regulations stipulated under the Act sound utopian if not utterly ridiculous.

The Act demands that all food businesses, whether restaurants in hotels, slaughterhouses, or itinerant hawkers, follow some basic hygiene regulations. The 43 points covered in Section 4 under sanitation say, among other things, that the surroundings should be free from filth and free from insects, that FBOs should provide potable water, that food handlers should wash their hands with soap or detergent and water before handling food, and that body parts must not be scratched. Hawkers should make sure that the work surface of their vending carts is protected from the sun, wind and dust. The location of the unit should not block traffic or pedestrians. Utensils should be rinsed and scrubbed with detergent and rinsed again under running water. Basic hygiene regulations anywhere else, yes, but not quite basic in Mumbai.

The DNA story points out that Mumbai has over 1,00,000 FBOs ranging from top-end restaurants to roadside vendors, and include manufacturers and sellers of packaged food products or raw materials such as dealers of milk, dairy products, meat and oil. The regulations apply to everyone, including “petty food manufacturers”, which, according to the Act include makers or sellers of food, hawkers, itinerant manufacturers which includes vendors, temporary stall holders, and distributors of food in any religious or social gathering with an annual turnover of less than Rs12 lakh. These are our sandwichwalas, vada pao walas, bhelwalas, kharvas sellers, khichiya papadwalas, kebab stalls, lassi stands, peanut vendors, and so on. The Act warns us that street vendors who don’t comply with these rules will lose their licence and are likely to incur hefty fines and penal action.

I’d like to see even one street food hawker manage to pull off just ten of these 43 requirements.

Then there are the packaging regulations. I spoke with people who sell unbranded packaged foods on the streets, such as buddhi ka baal, or chana jor garam and they were not clear if the packaging regulations of the Act apply to their products. These regulations stipulate that all pre-packed food must have a label that specifies (among other things) the name of the food, the list of ingredients, and nutritional information. It would require a massive change in their largely unorganised packing system, one that will take considerable time and effort.

There are some attainable goals, such as food handlers wearing headgear and keeping their mouths covered; making sure that equipment doesn’t have mould or fungus; and ensuring that insecticides and disinfectants are stored separately. All the regulations are very close to the ones listed in international food safety systems such as HACCP. However, many of the rules laid down are not, and should not be, the sole responsibility of the business owners, but instead should largely be taken care of by the city’s civic authority, the BMC.

The intentions behind the Act are well meaning – given our city’s abysmal hygiene conditions, we do need clearer science-based standards for food safety. It demands attention to honesty, hygiene, and fair practices, and it clears the confusion caused by multiple acts. This comprehensive, single point of reference Act is meant to override other food-related laws and repeal at least eight which were in operation until this Act was enforced. These laws include The Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954; The Essential Commodities Act, 1955; and The Milk and Milk Product Order, 1992. Eventually it plans to ensure that regulations governing the Indian food industry are as per international standards. It will also be the only Act applicable to food across the country.

On the evening of February 4, before the extension was announced, I asked several street food hawkers, both licenced and unlicenced, across various markets in the city about how prepared they are for the FSSA, considering the deadline had (then) ostensibly passed. The general consensus, among those who were aware of the Act, was that while we are bound and frustrated by archaic laws, even this relatively new one seems to lack a sense of reality, context and perspective.

At a large 40-year-old kirana store that also sells fresh idli batter, the employees were livid. “I have to label all loose goods,” said the owner. “This is clearly a way to make sure that only multinationals survive and local small businesses are wiped out.” Turns out that the theory is not his alone.

A singh-channa stall owner with a small but established and licenced streetside shop said that people buy loose peanuts from him, which he then heat seals in clear plastic bags just before handing them over. He has no idea how he is expected to work in the packaging rules for this kind of business, but he’s not going to worry too much. “This has been going on for over a year,” he said. “They came to this street and handed out application forms to all the vendors. It eventually will all come to handing out more bribes to more officers, that’s all.”

A vendor who was vigorously tossing together Chinese bhel made up of florid Szechuan sauce, cabbage, bright yellow noodles, and macaroni tried to sell me a plate until I asked him about his FSSA registration. “Would I be doing this if I was educated enough to understand laws?” he asked before brushing me off. My panipuriwala who has had a thela for over two decades said that if the law is implemented as planned, more than half of Mumbai’s street food vendors will have to shut shop. Over fifty per cent of the vendors I spoke with had no idea that there was such an Act, despite the government conducting a fairly extensive campaign across print and radio.

The people who were somewhat aware agreed that implementation of this Act will either keep getting postponed, or it will be implemented and lose its teeth. In the off chance that it is eventually effectively implemented, Mumbai’s street food scene will change, because all the smaller vendors would prefer to close down their businesses and change their professions instead of complying or paying the price for not. The ones who survive will have to increase their prices to incorporate the added cost of bribes. The most optimistic view was that in five years the city will have food courts set up by the government, much like Singapore, where sanitation and facilities are taken care of for licenced vendors. I’m curious to see how it plays out.

Roshni Bajaj Sanghvi is a Mumbai-based food journalist, a contributing editor at Vogue magazine, a graduate of the French Culinary Institute in New York City, and the restaurant reviewer for the Hindustan Times newspaper in Mumbai.