Legal Framework Regulating Food Safety: A critical Appraisal

Food safety is crucial for progress and the economic growth of a country. With rapidly increasing urbanization, population and rising economy, India faces many challenges in its quest for food safety. Use of excessive pesticides, growth hormones, exposure to toxic waste etc, results in food contamination at the farm level. Additives, contaminants, chemicals, environmental pollutants, adulterants, toxic colorants or preservatives, etc. render the food unsafe for consumption. At any stage of food production, right from the primary production to processing, packaging and supplying, the quality of the food can be compromised. Every step, thus, poses a challenge for enforcement of food safety regulations. The present legislation dealing with food safety in India, ie, the Food Safety and Standards Act (FSS Act) was passed in 2006 after repealing various central Acts relating to food safety. The FSS Act 2006 and Rules were notified and commencement of new regime started from August 2011.In the last few years of its coming into force, FSSAI has done a lot of ground work to effectively enforce the new food safety regime. However, based on the working of FSSAI and a review of the literature including the Report of Comptroller and Auditor General of India conducting the performance audit of the implementation of the FSS Act and the Report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare on functioning of FSSAI, it is imperative that various measures are required to be undertaken to strengthen the regulatory framework for robust enforcement of the FSS Act. In this paper, the researcher intends to critically examine the working of the present Indian Food Safety Regime. The researcher has also used the experience gained during a recently conducted survey in the National Capital Region under a UGC funded project in the area of food safet