Addressing National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) in New Delhi representatives recently, D K Samantaray, chief executive officer, Food Safety Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) assured that the regulator would help the food service industry resolve all issues pertaining to licencing and registration, sampling and enforcement.
Emphasising on the larger participation of all stakeholders, he said that there was no place for Inspector Raj in the food sector, and the entire idea of the Food Safety and Standards Act (FSSA), 2006, was capacity-building, training and implementing it through participation.
Samantaray urged the stakeholders to help FSSAI in making the entire food chain, from farm to fork, secure. “The challenges are difficult, as the food does not merely contain viruses, but it now contains heavy metals, antibiotics and veterinary drugs as well, and therefore, the participation of primary producers (i.e. farmers) is also needed,” he added.
He also emphasised the need for back-end infrastructure like laboratory testing facilities for farmers that would educate and enable them to reduce the risk of overdose of chemicals during farming.
During the interaction, Samir Kuckreja, president, NRAI, said that the purposes of holding the interaction were to spread awareness about the Act and to discuss the challenges being faced by the industry in relation to the implementation of the various regulations under the Act.
He said, “The food service industry is a decent contributor to the public exchequer with an estimated contribution of Rs 11,500 crore towards taxes in 2013. This is projected to double by 2018 to nearly Rs 24,600 crore.”
“The industry successfully engaged with FSSAI and resolved many issues, including filing of returns, the list of documents to be submitted, checklists for inspectors, etc. NRAI has also taken up issues like the reduction of the appeal time to designated officers from 30 days to seven days,” Kuckreja added.
He said that he believed the new food safety laws were forward-thinking and ambitious, while the regulations should be aimed at helping the industry and not be overbearing in procedural issues which detract from core business.
Emphasising on the larger participation of all stakeholders, he said that there was no place for Inspector Raj in the food sector, and the entire idea of the Food Safety and Standards Act (FSSA), 2006, was capacity-building, training and implementing it through participation.
Samantaray urged the stakeholders to help FSSAI in making the entire food chain, from farm to fork, secure. “The challenges are difficult, as the food does not merely contain viruses, but it now contains heavy metals, antibiotics and veterinary drugs as well, and therefore, the participation of primary producers (i.e. farmers) is also needed,” he added.
He also emphasised the need for back-end infrastructure like laboratory testing facilities for farmers that would educate and enable them to reduce the risk of overdose of chemicals during farming.
During the interaction, Samir Kuckreja, president, NRAI, said that the purposes of holding the interaction were to spread awareness about the Act and to discuss the challenges being faced by the industry in relation to the implementation of the various regulations under the Act.
He said, “The food service industry is a decent contributor to the public exchequer with an estimated contribution of Rs 11,500 crore towards taxes in 2013. This is projected to double by 2018 to nearly Rs 24,600 crore.”
“The industry successfully engaged with FSSAI and resolved many issues, including filing of returns, the list of documents to be submitted, checklists for inspectors, etc. NRAI has also taken up issues like the reduction of the appeal time to designated officers from 30 days to seven days,” Kuckreja added.
He said that he believed the new food safety laws were forward-thinking and ambitious, while the regulations should be aimed at helping the industry and not be overbearing in procedural issues which detract from core business.
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