New Delhi, Oct 26 (IANS) The licensing and regulatory regime for India’s food processing industry is set for a complete recast with a new set of standards to take effect from January next year, an official said Monday.
“Right now, there are many types of licences. But we will get into one integrated licence,” Chairperson of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) P.I. Suvrathan told IANS on the sidelines of an interactive session on Indo-French cooperation in agriculture and food processing here.

Explaining, he said: “For example, now there is one licence for edible oils, another for milk and another licence under the PFA (Prevention of Food Adulteration) law. But now there will be only one licence from FSSAI.”

He said that the licence for the larger industries would be issued from the government of India while the state governments will issue the licence for smaller industries.

“Since licences for smaller industries were issued by bodies like panchayats and municipalities, we are now working on getting all these integrated into one licence,” Suvrathan said.

He said that the new law under the Food Safety and Standards (FSS) Act, 2006, would be implemented in a phased manner replacing the current Prevention of Food Adulteration (PFA) Act from January 1 next year.

“From a prosecution-oriented law, we are going for a scientific-oriented law. Earlier, it was a case of just taking a (faulty) sample and going for prosecution. Now, we are going into food safety, food safety plans, risk analysis, which were not there earlier,” he added.

“All other countries are doing that. You cannot have a regulation without risk analysis. So, we are building a structure for that.”

Suvrathan also said that FSSAI was working on aligning the standards of Indian food products with the Codex Alimentarius, the collection of internationally recognised standards, codes of practice, guidelines and other recommendations relating to foods, food production and food safety.

“What we are doing is reviewing the current standards in each sector. We are looking at what are the standards (in India) now, what are the standards in other countries, what are the Codex standards and see what is the best for India and align ourselves in each sector accordingly,” he said.

The advertisement code for food products is also being revamped.

The FSSAI has posted on its website a new advertisement code calling for feedback from stakeholders, according to Suvrathan.

The labelling procedure for food products is also under review.

“A group is already looking at the current labelling standards. It will see how it can be changed and what sort of improvement is required,” he said.