Laws against food adulteration in India

Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 (FSS Act, 2006)

• In 2006, the government enacted the FSS Act, which repealed all other laws governing food quality in India at that time. The act empowered the central government to frame rules under the act to deal with several aspects with respect to the regulation of food safety.
• FSSAI: Act established the Food Safety and Standard Authority of India (FSSAI) to supervises and regulate food safety and standards. FSSAI is empowered to establish various other authorities like the Central Advisory Committee, Scientific Panels, and committees for consultation and opinions in the matters of food safety.
• Food Commissioners: The Act empowers the State Government to appoint a Commissioner of Food Safety for the State for effective implementation of the provisions at the State level.
• Food Safety officers: Food Commissioner is authorised to appoint Food Safety officers for each district.
• A food safety officer is the authorized person to inspect the safety and security of food that is being served in restaurants or street food stalls.
• In case the food inspected by an officer is not fresh or had got spoilt, the FSSAI officer has all the rights to stop the production of such food and issue a warning in writing to the organizer.
• Licensing: Act prohibits any person to operate any food business without a license from the designated officers.
• It provides for the punishment for the Import, manufacture, storage, sale or distribution of any food article which is adulterated and compensation to the victims.
• the Act also regulates the food products which can be imported.

Rules framed under the act

Following are some of the rules enacted by the government:

• Food Safety and Standards (Licensing and Registration of Food Businesses) Regulation, 2011.
• Food Safety and Standards (Packaging and Labelling) Regulation, 2011.
• Food Safety and Standards (Laboratory and Sampling Analysis) Regulation, 2011.
• Food Safety and Standards (Food Product Standards and Food Additives) Regulation, 2011.

Indian Penal Code, 1860

According to Section 272 and 273, food or drink adulteration or sale of such food or drink is an offense punishable with imprisonment which may extend to six months or fine or both.

DART

FSSAI has set up an online platform named DART (Detect Adulteration with Rapid Test) for checking the quality of various food articles like milk, dairy products, oils, grains, fruits, vegetables, sugar, beverages, etc.

Consumer Protection Act, 2019

The Act provides for punishment by a competent court for the manufacture or sale of adulterant/spurious goods. The court may, in case of the first conviction, suspend any license issued to the person for a period of up to two years, and in case of second or subsequent conviction, cancel the license permanently.

Causes of adulteration

Profit motive: Big and small business owners are adulterating the products to maximize their profits by reducing the cost of producing them. For ex; in the case of honey, producers have been allegedly using sugar syrup which is less costly compared to raw honey.

Lack of technology: India is lacking the technology to detect the adulteration of high levels, such as in the present case of adulteration in Honey, Indian tests could not be able to detect the adulteration in the samples provided by the big brands.

Lesser Punishment: Punishment for adulteration, which may cause grievous injury to the human system and cause the disease like cancer, is not stringent.

Increasing food demand: With the growth of the population together with their purchasing power, demand for food products is also increasing at a fast pace. To meet this increasing demand, adulteration becomes a common phenomenon.

Lack of manpower: FSSAI has cited a shortage of food safety officers and laboratories as reasons for increasing the production of unsafe food products.

Way forward

Public awareness

• The most important component for ensuring food safety is the people themselves. If people are aware of the on the spot quality assessment techniques of the products they might be able to avoid low-quality or harmful products.
• Thus, awareness must be spread on a wider scale among people for ensuring food safety through various social media platforms.
• One of the most potential post-purchase ways to check adulteration is by performing simple tests at homes. Consumers should also be aware of their rights and report the seller who has sold them adulterated food.
• People need to be very cautious when they buy products from stores and malls. They should check for standards like ISI standard mark, Agmark for quality products, FSSAI standard mark, date of packing and date of expiry, etc.

Increasing punishment 

• One way of doing this is by hiking the penalty, including making it analogous to attempt to murder in some extreme cases of adulteration.

Testing

• Authentic testing of food and adulterant detection of various food products is required for value assessment.
• The government can set up more testing laboratories with acceptable charging fees, where the purity of food can be analyzed by sending a sample of food by the public.

FSSAI proposal

The government should consider the following amendments proposed by FSSAI to FSS act, 2006:

• In extreme cases like deaths due to adulteration, Punishment for a term which shall not be less than 7 years but which may extend to imprisonment for life and also fine which shall not be less than Rs. 10 lakh.
• Increasing the punishment for obstructing, impersonating, intimidating, and threatening, and assaulting a food safety officer to the imprisonment of not less than 6 months and up to two years, besides a penalty of up to Rs 5 lakh.

Food Adulteration is a grievous crime as it has the potential to cause a long term injury to the health of a person which not only hurt people physically but also economically and socially, it is the duty of the government to protect its citizens from the hidden enemies of the society, playing with the lives of people just for increasing their share of wealth in society. Thus, the provision of stringent punishment must be enacted for them.