Boiling over: State governments look the other way on food complaints

NEW DELHI:

■ Utsav Madan, a West Delhi resident, bought a packet of Moong Dal from a departmental store. As he boiled it the water turned a deep yellow. The artificial colour wore off.

■ Debashish, a Thane resident, bought a box of sweets from a restaurant. The restaurant was smelly. The sweets were sour and too old to eat.

Utsav and Debashish were victims of food adulteration. Across the country, consumers have complained about the quality of the food they are buying. These include milk and dairy products, spices and cereals. But unlike the hue and cry that breaks out when questions are asked on the quality of popular branded products—like Maggi noodles in 2015—they rarely merit government attention.

Data from the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) shows that state administrations choose to overlook not only complaints, but also evidence, of impure food. An analysis of the FSSAI data shows authorities have tested similar sample sizes of edibles (around 80,000 per year), while the number of ‘samples found adulterated’ has constantly risen in the same period.

Food safety officers in states are required to take food samples and send them for analysis in laboratories. A total of 84,537 samples were collected from all the states in 2014-15; 77,941 in 2015-16, and 80,463 in 2016-17.

In contrast, the number of adulterated food samples rose from 14,716 in 2014-15 to 16,133 in 2015-16 and to 16,659 in 2016-17.

“Departments in most states are short-staffed. There are only about 30-40 or 50 food inspectors in each state, which is too little. There are thousands of dairies and groceries and restaurants in any big city,” said Naresh Kadyan, a consumer rights activist who has been campaigning for right quality of milk.

Even for those found guilty, punishment is a rarity. Convictions were only 1,402 in 2014-15, 540 in 2015-16 and 1591 in 2016-17. In most cases the authorities impose fines.

In 2014-15, total fines collected was Rs 11.28 crore, in 2015-16 it was Rs 21.65 crore and in 2016-17 it was Rs 15.90 crore.

“(Food adulteration) is a bailable offence and the accused have never got arrested. Basically, the food safety department is like a toothless tiger,” said Kadyan.

The Law Commission has recommended that sections 272 and 273 of the Indian Penal Code be amended to make adulteration a serious crime.