June 15, 2010

 

In view of the lack of general awareness over food safety issues in India, the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry in India (Assocham) has recommended a four-pronged strategy to ensure proper and speedy implementation of food safety standards in the country.

 

In a study entitled "Food Quality and Safety - Issues and Way Ahead", the chamber advises four important steps including creating awareness, training, adoption of suggested models/prototypes and certification/registration to realise the goal of safe food practices in India.

 

As a first step, the study talks about creating a level of awareness that highlights common source of contaminants, good hygiene practices, importance of freshness and general do's and don'ts about outside food.

 

In the next step, a well evolved training programme involving state, district and village level government machinery, NGOs, chambers of commerce, trade associations and other service providers should be put in place to educate the masses.

 

The third step should be creation of cost effective models for preparation, storage and distribution of food in a difficult setting like India.

 

Finally, given the diversity of India's food chain ranging from street vendors to high end restaurants, the FSSA is likely to offer simple registration requirement for a broad category of vendors/hawkers and certification/license requirements for the rest. The registration procedure should be made compulsory as part of the training.