Tasty or healthy?: The Bill wants to crack down on those who cannot meet the new safety standards

Ecological activist Vandana Shiva likes to have samosas from shops in Calcutta’s bylanes and parathas from roadside dhabas in Delhi. But she worries that she may not be able to enjoy such carefree gastronomical delights any more. The government’s Food Safety and Standards Bill aims to crack down on those who cannot meet the new standards of safety. Naturally, roadside vendors would become a prime target of the new law.

The Food Safety and Standards Bill, which will be tabled in Parliament on July 24, seeks to replace the present Prevention of Food Adulteration (PFA) Act and the Essential Commodities Act and would render obsolete food-related legislation at the state level. The idea of an integrated food law was floated in 1998 by a committee set up by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government. The aim was to frame a law that would do away with the existing multiplicity of legislations and agencies in the food business. The new law consolidates eight existing laws governing the food sector and establishes the Food Safety and Standards Authority (FSSA) to regulate it. Its purpose is to lay down “science-based standards for articles of food and to regulate their manufacture, storage, distribution, sale and import.”

The Bill also lists specifications for contaminants, pesticide residue, biological hazards and labels. Under the law, everyone in the food sector is required to get a licence or a registration to be issued by local authorities.

The Bill also makes it mandatory for every distributor to be able to trace any food article to its manufacturer and every seller to its distributor so they can recall food items if they are found to have violated food safety standards. “This law is a welcome step to regulate the Indian food industry,” says D.V. Malhon, secretary of the All India Food Processors’ Association (AIFPA) in Delhi.

But though the Bill has many positive aspects, experts in the field feel that its implementation will cause problems for small-scale food traders and manufacturers. The Bill gives the power to local officers to suspend the license of food operators. “This could lead to corruption and harassment of small traders,” says Kaushiki Sanyal, a researcher at the Parliamentary Research Services, Delhi, and author of a legislative brief on the Bill.

Sanyal also takes issue with the fact that plants prior to harvesting and animal feed are exempted from inspection. “Such exemption does not control the entry of pesticides and antibiotics in food at its source,” she states.

Clause 18 (1)(a) of the Bill states that the Central and state governments and the FSSA shall “endeavour to achieve an appropriate level of protection of human life and health and the protection of consumers’ interests, including fair practices in all kinds of food trade with reference to food safety standards and practices.” But environmentalists and food specialists argue that there is no clear definition of what an ‘appropriate’ level of protection means. “Protection of human life and health has to be the single most important objective of any food safety regulation. But the Bill does not specify what an appropriate level of protection is and how it is to be measured,” says Kushal Pal Singh Yadav, research associate for food safety and pesticides at the Center For Science and Environment, Delhi.

Shiva agrees. She emphasises that the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act needs to be strengthened and not dismantled. “This new law is legalising the adulteration of our entire food system with toxic chemicals and industrial processing to serve the interests of large scale manufacturing firms,” she says. According to Shiva, the strength of India’s food economy lies in the fact that food is processed naturally and locally. “Cracking down on small dealers will only legalise the spread of toxic food that is being promoted by large multinational companies. The government needs to control the real polluters and not our kitchens,” she argues.

Questions are also being raised about the implementation of the Act. Under the law, every food business operator is required to have a license. Petty manufacturers who make their own food, hawkers, vendors, kiosk holders and temporary stall owners do not require a licence. Instead, they need to get their businesses registered with the local municipality or panchayat. But the penalty for breaking the law is deemed too severe for small-scale food manufacturers. “The penalty amount runs into lakhs of rupees which may be peanuts for a large company but may annihilate the businesses of most small food manufacturers,” says Malhon of the AIFPA.

Still, the new law does have supporters. Debashish Ghosh, law officer of the West Bengal Consumer Affairs Department, feels that the Bill is a step in the right direction. “The amended law will help consumers,” he asserts. But whether or not the new law continues to give consumers the option of digging into roadside samosas and parathas remains to be seen.