Govt to make integrated food law to curb Inspector Raj

Srinagar, June 23 (UNI) The Government would soon bring a comprehensive and integrated food law to curb the ''Inspector Raj'' prevailing in the field of food processing industry and take effective steps to ensure quality of processed food in the country.

Addressing the two-day Editors Conference on Social infrastructure issues here today, Union Food Processing Industries Ministry Secretary P I Suvrathan said the Food Safety and Standard Bill, 2005, already cleared by the Standing Committee would be passed in the Monsoon session of Parliament starting next month.

This would replace the existing 13 laws and rules, each of which have a separate inspector causing a lot of harassment to the people setting up food processing industries, Under the new Bill there would be a single authority and single common attitude which would bring improvement in the field, he said.

Moreover, the strict punishment provision of the present laws would be replaced with fines to ensure more effective implementation of the food quality standards, he said. The present strict penal provisions result in very few people getting convicted and piling of cases in courts, he said and added the financial penalities would ensure the strict WTO guidelines on processed food being implemented. Laying down standards on every single item to enable to trace the violator of the standard.

Mr Suvrathan also said the Centre is laying more emphasis on quality of food products of giving much importance on setting up of food labs. He said government is shifting emphasis towards imposing financial penalties for violators of food law like the western countries.

He said the Jammu and Kashmir University has been approached to set up a world class laboratory with global standard equipments, young women and men would be trained so that they could handle the equipment efficiently. They would also be trained in various food processing jobs to build capacity. He also stressed the need for public private partnership in food processing industry to remove the infrastructure bottlencks.

He said the government would re-look into its approach in States where horticulture and tourism are the main economic activities to beneffit militants of families who are in food processing and toursim industry.

Talking about the importance of maintaining hygiene while selling food by street vendors, he said the Governenmt intends to introduce about 10,000 steel carts for street vendors in the main tourist places across the country. He said each steel cart will contain all facilities to provide hygienic food to people like a cooking gas range, facilities to dispose of used water, disposable items etc.

Each steel cart would cost about Rs 20,000 Mr Suvrathan said in the next two to three years about 50,000 to 60,000 steel carts would be placed in the main cities and tourist places across the country.

He said that each city would have one food street which would provide a variety of ethnic food to consumers. He said the three food parks in Jammu and Kashmir are doing well and continuous interaction is needed with producers and consumers for the success of these parks.

The Conference was inaugurating yesterday by Chief Minsiter of Jammu and Kashmir and Kashmir Ghulam Nabi Azad and Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh. A large number of editors and senior mediapersons from across the country participated in the deliberations.

UNI AJ MIR DB2034