DINAMALAR NEWS

Can't expect small hotels to have food testing labs: HC

The High Court on Friday questioned as to how the Central government could expect small and medium hotels to have a laboratory to test the quality of food they serve to customers.

Hearing a petition by Karnataka Pradesh Hotel and Restaurants’ Association (KPHRA), which had challenged certain regulations laid down by the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2011, Justice A N Venugopala Gowda observed that even seven and five star hotels do not have the facility of food testing laboratories. 

“How can you expect small hotels to have laboratories?"

Mahmood Paracha, the counsel representing Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), submitted to the High Court that when Indians abroad open Indian restaurants, they have to maintain the food safety and standards as per the law of the land and cannot compromise on quality. The Central government has brought in the regulations to ensure that quality food is served at restaurants. 

Senior counsel Udaya Holla, representing KPHRA, submitted that it was not possible for small and medium hotels to have laboratories to test food quality as space available in certain restaurants is too less to have testing labs. The bench asked the counsel to submit an alternative plan to ensure the safety of consumable food. 

The counsel for FSSAI submitted that the best of the brains have gone in to making the Act and the standards cannot be lowered. The bench adjourned the hearing to February 28.

Food items rotting in ports and airports as govt introduces new packaging rules

Khushal Dedhia of VK Stores in Crawford Market has been turning away customers; a note at Hypercity, Vashi 

New Indian labelling requirements for imported foods and ingredients have led to a severe shortage of such items in Mumbai and across the country, hitting kitchens of top restaurants. 

Huge consignments of imported meats, cheeses, sauces, edible oil and even mayonnaise, among other popular items, are held up at airports and ports over what authorities describe as insufficient information on the packages' labels. 

The dwindling supply has left chefs wondering how to serve Greek salad without feta cheese, Miso soup minus silken tofu or Thai curry without fish sauce. 

It's also eating into restaurants' profits: prices of foreign foods - labelled in Spanish, Japanese and Italian - have now doubled in Mumbai's markets, but most eateries are unable to hike rates on their menus after having already done so recently. If the supply doesn't improve, they may be forced to pass on the costs to the patrons. 

It's not just eateries. Foodies, too, are struggling to get their favourite Italian Parma ham or Thailand's Sriracha sauce from local vendors and at big stores. 

"We are facing import challenges along with the industry to source international range of products," read a sign stuck in the food section of HyperCITY, Vashi. 

Made in India 

The problems arose late last year after the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), the Union health ministry agency that supervises food imports to ensure quality, started enforcing stricter labelling rules. 

The norms require manufacturers of prepackaged food items to: clearly explain the contents in English or Hindi, list the ingredients used and nutritional values, provide complete name and address of the producer and the country of origin. 

They also demand sticking of green and brown labels for vegetarian and non-vegetarian food items, respectively. 

While most countries have packaging requirements, they are not uniform, which made it difficult for Indian authorities to check consignments of imported food items for quality. In 2010-11 the government introduced new labelling standards for all food importers. It was only last September the FSSAI decided to hold back consignments for labelling infractions. 

Stocks rotting 

"For the past few months, I have been hearing horror stories from employees of consulates about how stocks of expensive ham and rare cheeses have been just lying at airport customs or in containers at the dockyard," Kabir Suri, CEO of Azure Hospitality, which owns the restaurant chain Mamagoto. 

"It's not just Mumbai; Delhi is also facing a supply shortage. Silken tofu, mushrooms, Japanese wine vinegar, Mirin sauce and sunflower seeds, which we use liberally at Mamagoto, have all but disappeared from most suppliers' product lists." 

While gastronomists and hoteliers agree that quality checks are important to prevent entry of substandard or spoiled food items into Indian markets, they want more time to speak to manufacturers abroad to implement new packaging rules. 

The Forum of Indian Food Importers has already made numerous representations to the FSSAI in this regard. Rakesh Banga, director at Banyan Fine foods India Pvt Ltd and founder-director at the importers' forum, said an importer can only add the company's name, food safety logo and manufacturing date on the label. Other details, including nutritional values, have to be specified by the manufacturer. 

"We are not saying that products made in Thailand should not meet Indian requirements," siad Banga. "All we are asking for is some more time to implement the law. We have been making representations to the health ministry and to the FSSAI, and we hope to get some relief." 

On the other hand, persuading manufacturers abroad to changing the packaging is proving to be difficult. Already, many manufacturers have cancelled their consignments for India over the new rules. 

End user will be hit 

The order rejections have pushed up prices of foreign foods in local markets and at retail stores. The price of mayonnaise, a popular egg-based sandwich spread, has shot up from Rs 250 to Rs 500 in the past few months. 

Most markets, however, do not have mayo in their stocks. 

Abottle of Thai fish sauce that cost around Rs 80 till a few months ago is sold for Rs 150. Olive oil is also in short supply, while Kraft cheese has all but disappeared from shelves. 

Traders from Crawford Market have been running from port to dock to source whatever stock is still available. "Since November, we have been facing a huge shortage of imported cheese and edible oils. The problem is so severe that we are turning away customers," said Khushal Dedhia, owner V K Stores. 

Hitesh Keswani, director of Silver Beach Entertainment and Hospitality Private Limited, revealed that his restaurants profits had dropped by 30 per cent because of rising prices of foreign food items. 

"Of our six distributors, five have decided to increase all product prices. We had increased our menu rates late last year so we cannot pass on the costs to our customers right now," said Keswani, who owns Silver Beach Cafe, Nom Nom, Copa, Park Bench and Jantar Mantar. 

Nikhil Chib, chef and owner Busaba and Busa-Go, said his costs too had gone up significantly. "Imported products' prices have gone up by 100 per cent. We, of course, don't intend to share the costs with our patrons. We will wait and watch what the government does to help the industry."

China punished 10,000 over food safety since 2011

Beijing, Feb 22 (IANS) China has prosecuted over 10,000 people in last three years since 2011 for production and sale of substandard and poisonous food, Chinese Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) said here Friday.

According to statistics from SPP, the highest agency at the national level responsible for both prosecution and investigation in the People's Republic of China, prosecutors also approved the arrest of some 7,000 people linked to manufacture and marketing of food products, Xinhua reported.

Nie Jianhua, SPP vice director in charge of public prosecution, said during a press briefing that illegal workshops, factories and markets were the major sources of problematic food.

Suspects were mainly self-employed business people, farmers or unemployed, he added.

Revealing about a prominent criminal offence concerning food safety, it was stated how a suspect named Liu Liguo sold 100 million yuan's worth of "gutter oil" made from kitchen waste between December 2007 and July 2011. Some 9 million yuan worth of such unsafe oil entered the cooking oil market.

"Gutter oil" literally refers to recycled oil dredged from gutters behind restaurants as well as inedible animal oil. The oil, which contains carcinogenic substances, is dangerous if consumed.

Liu was given a life sentence in 2013.

U.S. not targeting Indian drug companies: FDA chief

The head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Friday it was not unduly targeting drug companies in India, which supplies a large portion of drugs used in the U.S., as the agency cracks down on substandard medication from abroad.

In recent months, the FDA banned drugs and drug ingredients from two Indian companies, Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd (RANB.NS) and Wockhardt Ltd (WCKH.NS), citing quality concerns. Some Indian officials say the U.S. is disproportionately targeting Indian companies for enforcement actions.

FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, who recently returned from a 10-day official visit to India, rejected those charges, saying that her agency was simply "undertaking our required regulatory activities" needed to protect public health in the United States.

India supplies about 40 percent of the generic and over-the-counter drugs consumed in the United States, making it the second-largest supplier after Canada. Yet quality control problems have long plagued India's drug industry, largely due to a weak regulatory system.

In 2012, a report by India's parliament alleged collusion between pharmaceutical firms and officials at the country's Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO), which oversees the licensing, marketing and trials of new drugs. It described an agency that was both chronically understaffed and underqualified.

The country is trying to improve but the task facing both local and overseas inspectors is difficult. The FDA has 12 members of staff in India, while about 500 Indian companies are registered to export drugs to the U.S.

The FDA staff is tasked with fostering communication with their Indian counterparts and can inspect facilities.

Dr. Amir Attaran, a professor of law and medicine at the University of Ottawa, noted that "even if you put a huge number of FDA staff in New Delhi, they have no legal power, no ability to do surprise inspections, no ability to issue subpoenas or take other measures to force a drugmaker to open its books."

"They are foreign agents in a foreign land," he said.

During Hamburg's visit, the FDA and India's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare signed a statement of intent to cooperate to prevent the distribution of unsafe drugs.

The statement is not binding and has no enforcement power behind it. Among other things, the FDA agreed to inform India's regulatory authorities before inspections so that local inspectors can observe.

The ink on the statement was barely dry when the drug controller general of India, G.N. Singh, said in an interview that India would follow its own quality standards and that "the FDA may regulate its country, but it can't regulate India on how India has to behave or how to deliver."

Singh said his agency regularly inspects manufacturing facilities in India and that it plans to raise the number of inspectors to 5,000 in three to five years, from about 1,500.

"We don't recognize and are not bound by what the U.S. is doing and is inspecting," he added.

Some observers are skeptical of India's commitment to improving quality standards.

Last year, Ranbaxy pleaded guilty to felony U.S. charges of shoddy manufacturing practices and data falsification and agreed to pay $500 million in civil and criminal fines. Dinesh Thakur, a former Ranbaxy executive who blew the whistle on the company nearly a decade ago, said no one in the Indian government has contacted him about the matter.

"Clearly this is not a priority for the Indian government at the moment," he said.

The FDA may be able to ban products from individual facilities but its ability to impose widespread restrictions on India's drugs is limited, since the U.S. relies on them so heavily.

"The dirty little secret in all this is that we can't do without Indian products," said Roger Bate, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute who will moderate a congressional briefing on global substandard and counterfeit medicines on Wednesday. "We have to negotiate and pressure because we can't boycott."

A group of critics, including Bate, Attaran and Dr. Harry Lever, a cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic, plans to attend the briefing and hopes to put pressure on the White House to take up the issue of drug quality with the Indian government. Lever plans to discuss problems he is increasingly encountering with inferior-quality medicines.

"The Indian government needs to feel some pain on this," Bate said.

Hamburg repeated a call she made while in India for Indian regulators to step up their participation in discussions about global collaboration on drug production.

"India needs to be a full participant at the table," she said.

Global Study on Smoking

The Government is not aware of any such report. However, Ministry of Health and Family welfare undertook the Global Adult Tobacco Survey, India (GATS) during 2009-10. The survey data revealed that more than one third (34.6%) of adults (15 years and older) in India use tobacco in some form or the other. The use of smokeless tobacco (25.9%) is more prevalent than smoking (14.1%). 

GATS India estimated the number of tobacco users in India to be 27.49 crore, with 16.37 crore users of only smokeless tobacco, 6.89 crore only smokers and 4.23 crore users of both smoking and smokeless tobacco. 

The following key steps have been taken by Ministry of Health & Family Welfare to curb smoking and consumption of tobacco products: 

a) The “Cigarettes and other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, (COTPA) was enacted in 2003” to discourage tobacco use. 

b) In 2007-08 Government of India launched the National Tobacco Control Programme (NTCP) with the objectives to (i) create awareness about the harmful effects of tobacco consumption, (ii) reduce the production and supply of tobacco products, (iii) ensure effective implementation of the provisions made under (COTPA) and (iv) help the people quit tobacco use through Tobacco Cessation Centres. 

c) Under the 12th Five Year Plan the coverage of National Tobacco Control Programme (NTCP) has been up-scaled from existing 42 districts of 21 states to 53 districts of 29 states in 2013-2014. Approval has been obtained from Empowered Programme Committee (EPC) under NHM for scaling the programme to more than 600 Districts, in a phase-wise manner during 12th Five Year Plan. 

d) Further, the Food Safety and Standards (Prohibition and Restrictions on Sales) Regulations, 2011 dated 1st August 2011, issued under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, lays down that tobacco and nicotine shall not be used as ingredients in any food products. Currently, 33 States / UT’s have issued orders for implementation of the Food Safety Regulations banning manufacture, sale and storage of Gutka and Pan Masala containing tobacco or nicotine. 

e) Dedicated funds have been made available to air public awareness campaigns. A variety of media have been used to create awareness about the harmful effects of tobacco and to reach a wider audience. Dedicated spots have been developed as well as adapted from global best practices. 

f) The Ministry of Health has notified the new graphic health warnings which have come into effect from 1st April 2013. 

g) In order to protect the youth from unnecessary exposure to tobacco imagery in films and TV Programmes, the Ministry has notified the rules to regulate depiction of tobacco products or their use in films and TV programmes. As per these rules, all films and TV programmes (both Indian & Foreign) depicting tobacco products or their use have to screen a health spot of 30 seconds duration and a disclaimer of 20 seconds duration on the harmful effects of tobacco use. 

Vide notification G.S.R. 417 (E ) dated 30th May, 2008 Ministry has notified twelve (12) sets of person who have been authorized to impose and collect fine against violation of the provision related to prohibition of smoking in public places. Further vide notification G.S.R. 680 (E) dated 15th September, 2009 , nine (9 ) additional set of persons have been authorized. 

Further Section 12 of COTPA empowers the state governments to authorize any police officer, not below the rank of a sub-inspector or any officer of State Food or Drug Administration or any other officer, holding the equivalent rank being not below the rank of Sub- Inspector of Police to enforce the provisions under the Act. 

This was stated by Shri Ghulam Nabi Azad, Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare in a written reply to the Lok Sabha today.