Aug 7, 2018
Banned tobacco items worth Rs 1 lakh seized
Erode: Food safety officials seized Rs 1 lakh worth of banned tobacco and gutka products from a godown here on Monday.
Based on a WhatsApp message, the Tamil Nadu Food Safety and Drug Administration Department officials checked a store at Kongalamman Koil Street and found banned items in the godown behind the shop.
“Tobacco products weighing about 110kg were seized from Abeswar General Store at Kongalamman Koil Street. The shop was selling them in retail,” said T Kalaivani, designated officer of TNFSDAD, Erode district.
The officials collected samples from the seized products for laboratory tests. The food safety official said action would be initiated against violators.
400kg banned tobacco products seized
Trichy: The city police confiscated about 400kg of banned tobacco products that was being transported in a load van near Gandhi market here on Sunday. Inquiries found that the products were transported from Bengaluru to Trichy and meant for sale in the Gandhi market area.
Police detained a duo involved in the smuggling. They were identified as Sripal, 42, and Jebaram, 40, natives of Trichy.
Police sources said that a vehicle inspection was under way at Vellamandi Main Road when the Gandhi market police intercepted the load van and inspected the goods stocked in the concealed deck. To their shock, police found the banned products including chewable items stacked in 14 bundles.
Police said the contraband could weigh at least 400kg. “Rs 1 lakh worth contraband mostly chewable tobacco sourced from Bengaluru was seized from the load van,” an investigating officer said.
Meanwhile, an official with the food safety department said, “We have collected four samples from the contraband and have sent for laboratory inspection to identify the nature of seized tobacco products.”
It may be recalled that Thottiyam police personnel and food safety department officials seized Rs 15 lakh worth banned tobacco products from a private godown in Viswas Nagar near Palpannai in June. The food safety department has been conducting frequent inspections in Gandhi market and adjoining localities as there have been a series of tobacco seizure incidents.
Food Safety officials in Vadakara working in decrepit building
The dilapidated office building of the Food Safety Officer in Vadakara.
Shaky building may collapse any time, fear staff
The circle office of the Food Safety Department in Vadakara, housed in a 30-year-old dilapidated building of the Irrigation Department, is struggling to cope with its increasing work of enforcement and administration, say officials.
The administrative affairss of Vadakara, Kuttiyadi and Nadapuram circles of the department are handled in this shaky building, where five staff members are compelled to work under the situation. Those who visit the office from the Vadakara, Kuttiyadi and Nadapuram regions with various applications too are put to difficulties owing to the poor facilities at the circle office.
An officer attached to the circle office said the building was unfit now to carry out the operations of the department and it might collapse any time. Even renovation would not help to solve the crisis now, he said.
The electrical fittings, pipes, doors and windows are all in a damaged condition. The toilet block is in a poor shape, compelling the staff to look for other facilities. No renovation work has been carried out in the building for over 10 years.
The employees said they were in distress during the rainy season as the roof tiles had been damaged in several areas and rain water leaked in . The wooden ceilings too have been damaged owing to lack of maintenance.
‘Duplicate butter, cheese being used by eating joints’
Vadodara: Team of the Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) on Monday cracked down upon wholesalers dealing in butter, cheese and related products in the city.
The action was fallout of a representations in the VMC general board that ‘duplicate’ butter and cheese were being used by several street food vendors and even hotels in the city.
Food safety officers of the civic body checked dealers in the Jetalpur Road, Raopura, Khanderao Market and Harni areas of the civic body. They collected eight samples of items branded as cheese, pizza cheese, butter, paneer and fat spread during the drive. These would be tested in the public health laboratory of the civic body to find if there is adulteration.
A major controversy had been raked up after opposition corporator Farid Lakhajiwala alleged in the general board that ‘duplicate’ butter and cheese was being used by eateries in the city.
He had gone to the extent of claiming that mutton tallow was being used to prepare these items and they were available at very cheap rates as compared to pure butter or cheese.
The officials checked both the establishments that were named by Lakhajiwala in his representations. The teams also checked other establishments to verify if the allegations were true.
Lakhajiwala, however, said that the action had been taken a week after he made the representations. He said that this was too late and the dealers may have become alert and taken the adulterated material off the shelves.
Food safety officers seize adulterated spices
Jaipur: Five thousand kilograms of adulterated spices were seized by a team of food safety officers from a manufacturing unit of spices in Laxminarayanpuri of Jhotwara area on Monday. The unit has been sealed. More than 1,500 kg of powdered poha (flattened rice) has also been recovered from the unit owned by one Himmat Singh. “The owner brought powered poha and would then mix it in spices such as turmeric powder, coriander powder and chilli powder,” said an official.
The manufacturing unit was functioning without any licence. “We found that the owner has not procured food licence under Food Safety and Standards Act (FSSA). He was running the unit at a rented accommodation,” the food safety officer said. The officials have also collected samples of spices and sent them to food laboratory for testing. The health department officials alleged that the accused sold adulterated spices to those involved in selling adulterated spices in Gangapur City and Karauli. Officials claimed that they have seized more than 3,300 kg of adulterated spices.
32% of your packaged food products are genetically modified
Gone are the days when you knew where the food you were eating was coming from, what with pretty much everything mass produced and packaged at distant locations, after a series of processes to ensure great shelf life. But with increasing incidences of lifestyle diseases, the average Indian has wisened up, and is trying to pay heed to what he/she should or should not eat. The worrisome part, though, is that while we read the nutrition information on packaged food to determine what could be good for us, what we often ignore or fail to understand is that we may be risking our lives owing to the fact that much of what we consume has been genetically modified.
A recent study by the Pollution Monitoring Laboratory (PML) at the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) to understand whether GM foods are available in the Indian market, tested 65 imported and domestically produced processed food samples. Overall, 32% of the food products were GM positive, with a whopping 46% of imported food products also testing positive. About 17% of the samples manufactured in India tested positive, all of which contained cottonseed oil. What’s worse is that of the 20 GM-positive packaged samples (excluding crude cottonseed oil), 13 did not mention use of GM ingredients on their labels. In fact, some brands, including big international names, claimed to have no GM ingredients, but tested positive.
Speaking about this issue, Dr Priyanka Rohatgi, chief clinical dietician, HOD, Department of Nutrition and Dietetics at a city hospital, says, “Though India has resisted GM food production, there have been instances of such food being imported into the country (including corn, baby food and breakfast cereal, which have been introduced without adherence to relevant labeling laws). While a Directorate General of Foreign Trade notification in 2013 addressed the issue of labeling by requiring those importing GM food to explicitly mention it in their labels, in the case of home-manufactured products like edible oil, there are chances of GM cottonseed oil being mixed with other edible oil without any labeling.”
Elaborating on the health implications, Dr Priyanka says, “There is a strong correlation between the increasing use of herbicides, genetically-modified crop growth and the increase in a multitude of diseases. Studies have shown the sudden increases in the rates of diseases in the mid-1990s coincided with the commercial production of GE crops. Although such crops can resolve the issue of hunger in developing countries, the misuse of the technology can only be tackled by being aware customers. Some of the most negatively impacted food items are corn, soya, canola, aspartame and sugar beets, which should be avoided.”
ALL ABOUT GM FOOD
- Food produced from genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has not allowed GM food in India so far.
- The FSSAI and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare have not approved any GM food product. However, the CSE study confirms the illegal presence of imported and domestically manufactured GM foods in the Indian market. As per the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules, 2011, every package containing GM food shall bear ‘GM’ at the top of its principal display panel.
- As per Rule 6(7) of the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules, 2011, every package containing GM foods shall bear at the top of its principal display panel the letters ‘GM’.
Illegal but available: Who will regulate GM foods in India
Genetically modified (GM) food is available – illegally – on a large scale in the Indian market, according to a study by Centre for Science and Environment. The Delhi-based non-government put out its findings on 26 July.
GM foods are not permitted by existing laws and regulations under them, and are not expected to be sold in India. In fact, campaign groups such as Coalition for a GM-Free India have lodged complaints with concerned regulators last February and March, based on data from the Union commerce ministry.
In its latest study, CSE found that 32% of the samples it tested were GM-positive – 16 of these foods (80%) were imported and five were manufactured in India. This means that the vast majority of illegal GM foods are making their way into India by way of stealthy imports.
Thirteen of the brands did not mention the use of GM ingredients anywhere on their labels; three products were even mislabelled that they were GM-free.
GM-positive imported food products were based on, or used soy, cotton seed, corn and rapeseed, expectably; positive samples manufactured domestically were made from cottonseed – no surprises there either.
SC ALLOWS A REGULATORY VACUUM
What many may not know is that the Supreme Court of India was involved in creating a regulatory vacuum when it disposed off a writ petition (No. 11 of 2008 along with 173 of 2006) on 11 August, 2017. The petition was on regulatory agencies acting irresponsibly and jeopardising citizens’ health and environment.
“There is no notification/regulation allowing any activity in connection with genetically engineered and modified food,” the court said, probably not realising that GM foods were already flooding into India, in the absence of both Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) in the Union environment ministry as well as the Food Safety & Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) in the Union health ministry taking responsibility for regulating GM foods. It appears that this set the stage for flooding of our markets with illegal GM foods.
SHOCKING APATHY OF REGULATORS
Be that as it may, the more shocking response has been from the food safety regulator, FSSAI and of the Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), both key regulators in this context.
FSSAI put out a press release by the evening of 26th itself, which was quaintly called “Update on GM Food Regulation”. In this, FSSAI does not mention anything about what it intends to do about the illegal GM foods that are out there in supermarket shelves or about any deterrent action to prevent violations of the law.
The press release only talks about how FSSAI has “initiated the work on framing regulations on GM food”, for laying down procedures for safety assessment and approval of GM foods, based on internationally well established and accepted scientific principles, procedures and best practices. Incidentally, FSSAI has been saying this for years now.
A perusal of old press releases by FSSAI threw up another press release from another time exactly seven years ago, with regard to “unapproved food items being sold in the country (from 26 July, 2011!).
Here, Commissioners of Food Safety were being asked to advise the enforcement wing to be more vigilant, and also take legal action in case of violations of prevalent laws when unapproved foods are sold. Why is the FSSAI approaching the current illegal GM food scenario differently then?
The Director General of Foreign Trade, which should have watched out for illegal GM food coming in through the import route, has an equally ineffective and brazen response, on twitter. Referring to a letter that the DGFT sent to a few other agencies after a complaint by a citizens’ coalition, the twitter handle of DGFT (@dgftindia) tweeted out saying “please take note of OM issued by DGFT. You are requested to take up the issue with the departments concerned with reference of the said OM”.
This was an 'office memorandum' from the DGFT to the Department of Revenue (Customs) in the Union Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and Plant Quarantine Division of Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, wherein the DGFT only asks these other agencies “to take note of the complaint on apparent violations (in regulations) for necessary action as deemed fit”.
This means that the DGFT itself was certainly not going to investigate and initiate punitive action against violators of its own legally-created regulatory regime.
A third agency, in the form of Department of Consumer Affairs, which is, of course, aware of the violations of its Legal Metrology Act’s rules related to GM labelling, has chosen to keep quiet as usual. This has been their approach for years now, even after concerned consumers presented them with unlabelled GM cotton oil in 2013 and sought its intervention in implementing its own regulation.
Here is a classic case then of complete non-implementation of the regulations by multiple agencies, and lack of action even after violations are proven.
FOOD BRANDS AND IMPORTERS IMPLICATED
CSE reported how the American pharma company Abbott Laboratories is selling GM infant food in India, meant for toddlers with ailments, without labelling the foods as GM, and how they don’t do so in the United States. Double standards of corporations is something that Indian citizens have had to contend with for a long time now, and the story is repeating itself once again.
It is also interesting how so many corporations have indulged in flouting the FSSAI, DGFT and Legal Metrology Act regulations apparently wilfully.
Read together, it does not appear to be mere regulatory failure by one agency or the other, as much as a deeper strategy put into operation, of orchestrated back-door entry of GM into India. This suspicion gains credence in the context of very successful pushing back of any commercial cultivation permission to GM foods within the country by alert citizens.
EXPERTS AND CITIZENS CONCERNED
Over the past decade or so, hundreds of experts – agriculture scientists, biotechnologists, biologists, environmentalists etc – have been engaging with the issue of transgenic technology in our food and farming system and have been warning the government against promoting the same in our country.
Medical experts are one such group who have written to concerned ministers on occasion. Public rejection of GM foods became apparent on social media platforms like Twitter, a day after CSE’s findings were made public.
Thousands of tweets were shot off tagging the regulators and the Prime Minister by ordinary citizens on #StopGMFood hashtag. Their concern is driven by the fact that there is indeed scientific evidence on the adverse health impacts of GM crops.
Evidence from experimental studies from around the world has pointed to adverse impacts like allergies, organ damage, immune system damage, reproductive health problems, effects on growth and development, inter-generational impacts, cancerous growths etc.
GM ENCOURAGED, ORGANIC CURTAILED?
The irony of the current situation of regulation for food safety is inescapable. Organic foods, which by themselves go a long way in fulfilling the mandate of FSSAI are being put through mandatory certification requirements by FSSAI, when chemical-fed foods have to meet no such requirements.
And when illegal GM foods are also allowed to flourish by sheer lack of inaction by the FSSAI. So, whose side is the FSSAI on, and who is to make the food safety regulator fulfil its basic mandate then? It is hoped that Parliament will debate this issue thoroughly and that the Ministers concerned will intervene and ensure that regulators discharge their responsibilities in favour of ordinary citizens.
VIOLATIONS GALORE
Any GM food offered for sale in India has to have the approval of FSSAI, which is the food-safety regulator formed under the Food Safety & Standards Act 2006. Section 22 of the Act specifies this. This Section has not been converted into notified regulations as yet and FSSAI, by its own admission in the Supreme Court, has argued that any GM food in the market is therefore, unpermitted and illegal.
Further, any GM food brought into India should have declared itself as such under the Foreign Trade (Development & Regulation) Act, 1992, that too after the approval of Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee created under the Environment Protection Act 1986’s 1989 Rules, in the Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change.
Even though Rule 11 has been exempted by a notification by GEAC (that too for the “occupier” as defined in the Parent Act EPA 1986, the Rules read as 2 (1), 2 (2) along with 7(1), require GEAC approval, along with the DGFT notification under FTDRA 1992.
Additionally, the Legal Metrology Act, 2009, administered by the Department of Consumer Affairs, has notified in 2012, a rule that “every package containing the genetically modified food shall bear at the top of its principal display panel the words 'GM'”.
Therefore, the foods that have tested positive in CSE lab testing have violated the Food Safety Act, the Environment Protection Act, the Foreign Trade (Development & Regulation) Act as well as the Legal Metrology Act. Apart from the fact that they could be potentially harmful to human health.
Like Sunita Narain of CSE wrote recently, it is ultimately about citizens’ food, choices and health. It is up to citizens whether they will stay quiet or force the regulators and food industry players to work for citizens’ welfare.
The author is the co-convenor of Alliance for Sustainable & Holistic Agriculture (ASHA)
Equipment, manpower deficit hobbles Valley’s Food Safety on Wheels program
Program will become functional in a month: Commissioner
The food safety vans, which are meant to provide instant and mobile food testing service in J&K to ensure quality of commodities in market, are not being put to use since March 2018, due to lack of proper equipment and manpower shortage.
A report by Food Safety and Standards Association of India (FSSAI) has revealed, no monthly progress report (MPR) has been sent by the DFCO to FSSAI, the central regulatory authority, in past six months as mandated under food safety laws.
The progress report of states uploaded by FSSAI on 25 July, latest one available, states “MPR pending for May and June 2018” for J&K. In May, the FSSAI report stated “MPR pending for March, 2018”.
When contacted Commissioner food safety J&K, Dr Abdul Kabir Dar agreed that work output of food safety on wheels was low. “There was some problem with technical staff as well as drivers,” he said, adding that the issue had been “sorted out recently”.
He said the department had sourced technical staff from health department to run the mobile labs and to “fill the gaps”.
“We have roped in an agency to train the staff and the vans will become fully functional in a month,” the commissioner said.
Currently, he said the vans were being used for “transportation of samples, do basic testing and create awareness, especially in peripheral areas”.
A source in the department said the reports were not being sent on a regular basis because of “inadequate output” of these testing labs.
“These are merely vehicles without requisite equipment and manpower for testing. That is a big hurdle,” the source said.
Sharing details he said the equipment that has been fitted in the van for milk testing was able to give a report only on whether water has been added to it or not.
Moreover, the machine is not fit to test processed milk available in market, local and from other states. “It can only test solid fat and non solid fat in raw cow’s milk,” he said. He said other types of milk, toned, pasteurized, packaged, was out of the ambit of testing due to lack of facility.
Similarly, for testing edible oil, the equipments fitted in the vans have provision to give only refractive index of oil. It cannot detect impurities and adulteration. The same is case with water testing.
An official of the department said that manpower engaged to run the equipment in mobile vans was also not “adequately trained”.
This has also been corroborated by FSSAI, which in its May status report stated that in J&K “Training and awareness programs (for mobile testing vans) are also not being undertaken”.
The program, which cost state Rs 2.4 crore, was flagged off in J&K in March 2017 to improve infrastructure for food testing in state.
While Rs 1.75 crore had been allocated by the state government for procurement of five testing vans, Rs 60 lakh was given by FSSAI for two of the mobile labs fitted with “high tech” equipment to detect adulteration and quality of food samples on the move in market and food business operators.
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