PANAJI: The limits of formaldehyde for 63 species of marine and fresh water fish have already been set by the food safety and standards authority of India (FSSAI), New Delhi.
The food safety and standards (FSS) (Food Products Standards and Food Additives) Regulations, 2011, are being amended to add ‘Limit of Formaldehyde’- the naturally occurring formaldehyde for 63 different species of fish, the FSSAI informed the high court of Bombay at Goa on Thursday.
“The amount of naturally-occurring formaldehyde for 63 species has been laid down under sub-regulation 2.6.2 of FSS Amendment Regulations, 2020,” assistant director of FSSAI Pankaj Gera submitted to the high court.
During the hearing on Thursday, counsel representing FSSAI, Dattaprasad Lawande, told the court that a total of 693 samples of fish have been analysed till date by the Central Institute of Fisheries Technology (CIFT), Kochi to determine the naturally-occurring formaldehyde in fish.
On the request of petitioners that no checks of formalin in fish are being carried out, the high court asked the government to place the reports of random checks before it. Senior counsel J E Coelho Pereira told the division bench that the laboratory to test the presence of formaldehyde in fish at the SGPDA market in Margao, should in fact be set up at the wholesale market.
Under its Rs 54 lakh collaborative research project ‘Natural level of formaldehyde in freshly harvested fin fish and shellfish’ initiated on July 3 last year, the FSSAI is expected to set formaldehyde standards for 72 major commercial species of fish which contribute to more than 90 percent of the fish production and consumption in India.
The central authority is expected to complete the exercise by August this year after analysing more than 1,000 samples of fish.
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