There is an urgent need to reform FSSAI to maintain the nation’s health. The packaged food industry will be $89 billion in India by 2029, growing at 15 per cent per annum. However, the regulator governing the industry is still living in ancient times. Unfortunately, despite the rise in awareness about health and nutrition among citizens, food regulators do not consider it important enough to ensure that food is healthy and nutritious.
This is leading to a health crisis. India has become a land of heart and diabetic patients. The prevalence of diabetes in India stands at 11.4 per cent, while 35.5 per cent of Indians suffer from hypertension. Additionally, abdominal obesity stands at 40 per cent across the population, and female abdominal obesity is 50 per cent.
This lacunae in regulations allows food companies to sell high fat, sugar, and salt (HFSS) packaged as health and even baby food to consumers. In the recent Nestle case, a Swiss investigation agency found the company was adding unhealthy sugar to its baby food brand – Ceralac. The company denied this and said it only added ‘permissible levels of sugar.’ What is the permissible level? Who permits sugar to be added to baby food? How did baby food sold by this company have sugar in India and Africa? The investigation also revealed that the company only added sugar in countries where the regulations were weak. It did not add sugar to the same product in the US and Europe, where rules are much tighter.
Nestle is fighting its investors to cut down the sale of high-sugar items like chocolates etc. that it makes in Europe. Another study by the University of Oxford shows that MNCs like Mondelez, Unilever, Kellogg, and Mars all produce food with high quantities of fat, sugar and salt.
The Food Safety and Standards (FSS) Act was passed in 2006, but the regulations were delayed due to lobbying and could be notified only five years later, in 2011. The delay shows the power that the food lobby had over the UPA government and bureaucrats.
Another amendment bill has been pending for more than four years. It aims to strengthen the FSSAI with more powers to ensure compliance with food quality norms. This amendment bill has been awaiting Parliament’s approval since 2020. These delays in the amendment reflect poorly on the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the priority the government is giving to citizens’ health.
FSSAI has been doing some lip service when it comes to healthy diets. For instance, its FSS (Safe Food and Healthy Diets for School Children) Regulations, 2019 to ensure wholesome food to school children by not allowing food items high in fat, salt and sugar to be sold and advertised within school premises; limiting industrial TFA (trans fatty acids) to not more than 3 per cent in all fats and oils by January 2021 and not more than 2 per cent by January 2022 as well as notification of Food Safety and Standards (Labelling and Display) Regulations, 2020, prescribing the labelling requirements of pre-packaged foods. It is fine to put pressure on schools, but what about the food sold to children outside the school? There is no regulation on them.
FSSAI’s amendments to revamp Food Safety and Standards (Licensing and Registration of Food Business) Regulations must be stronger and in sync with the current environment and consumers’ requirements. FSSAI amendments were opened to public comments, but FSSAI has never revealed the recommendations made by consumer organisations on these amendments. Hence what we have is a set of amendments that only increase bureaucratic control and do very little for consumers’ health. As a matter of fact, the amendment mentions health only five times in the whole document, and not always to improve it as the analysis below will show.
Take the amendment to the sub-sections of Section 34 of the Act (Emergency prohibition notices and orders) will be substituted with the words “If the designated officer is satisfied that the health risk condition exists arising out of emergent circumstances or due to habitual default by the food business, he may, after following the procedures as the Food Authority may specify by regulations, recommend to the Commissioner of Food Safety, for imposing the ban or closure of the food business. Purchaser shall obtain a receipt from FBO at the time of purchase to have the food analysed.” This amendment does nothing for the consumer but gives the inspectors a lot of power on the ground, which is not good per se. More discretionary power means more corruption, not better health or food products.
Another amendment in section 3 of the Act, in subsection (l) (r), the word ‘manufacturing units’ shall be substituted by the words ‘food business’. This allows FSSAI to enhance its scope of coverage and makes it more specific to the food business. Not every food business is about manufacturing or processing, a large part of grains is about cleaning, sorting and packing only.
There is an amendment to Section 3(1) (20) that the words “not injurious to health” will be added after the words “an article of food”. Currently, this section reads as follows – “misbranded food” means an article of food – (A) if it is purported, or is represented to be, or is being – (i) offered or promoted for sale with false, misleading or deceptive claims either; (a) upon the label of the package, or (b) through advertisement. Now, if we add ‘not injurious to health’, then all food that can cause injury to citizens will not be classified under this category, effectively exempted from being classified as misbranded food. This amendment effectively reduces FSSAI’s powers to go after food that has made deceptive claims and caused injury to citizens.
FSSAI’s amendment of Section 3 (l) (zx) says that after the words “the article of food unsafe”, the words “and thereby injurious to health” will be added. Currently, this section defines sub-standard food as follows, “Sub-standard, an article of food shall be deemed to be sub-standard if it does not meet the specified standards but not to render the article of food unsafe.” Now, with the amendment, the regulator will also have to prove that the food is unsafe and injurious to the health of consumers. If it did not follow the standards laid down earlier, it could be classified as unsafe.
The amendments seem to be diluting the regulator’s powers, which is good if it abuses its powers to classify food products as unsafe. But that is hardly the case. FSSAI rarely declares food unsafe or sub-standard. This should mean that the quality of food in India is excellent and all businesses are following standards. Data from research in 2015 shows that food-borne diseases have an alarming prevalence of 13.2 per cent at the household level. The repeated complaint against FSSAI is that it is unable to regulate or control food-borne diseases. FSSAI claims it is because of the unorganised nature of the food business. The problem is not unorganised, but these businesses are small and spread across the country.
However, the FSSAI’s record of controlling or improving food from organised large businesses is not good either. In several cases, the Supreme Court had to step in due to the regulator’s inaction. Even the Oxford study shows that organised multinational food companies sell a high quantity of unhealthy food.
A substantial part of the new amendment deals with powers that the CEO and the FSSAI Chairperson will have in running the organisation. These amendments are about the bureaucracy, amending the laws for more powers and authority without` accepting any responsibility. For instance, it does not say anywhere what will be the responsibility and penalty in case of deaths due to food-borne diseases. If a company sells sub-standard or injurious food to the consumer’s health, the licensing officer will be penalised. No responsibility is assigned to any official or employee of the regulator who gave the license or permission to sell these food products. This lack of personal responsibility is the biggest reason the regulator has zero accountability.
The lack of accountability is why FSSAI has become a ‘corrupt’ organisation. Every license, certification, or permission issued by it needs a ‘consultant’ or middleman to get it done. There is an online portal, but it is only in name. It has to be done through a middleman.
Successive CEOs have only weakened the systems and made the procedures so complicated that it is impossible for startups even to navigate them. Established companies oil the machinery with their army of middleman working on their behalf to get things done.
There is an urgent need to revise this amendment bill and introduce health and nutrition as the regulator’s objective. Moreover, the regulators must work towards consumer health and not just maintaining and making the standards. The regulator also needs empowered leadership that is able to make these changes. There are several important process improvements needed at FSSAI that touch almost every hotel, restaurant and consumer in the country.
K Yatish Rajawat is a public policy researcher and works at the Gurgaon-based think and do tank Centre for Innovation in Public Policy (CIPP). Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.