Your food bill is ready

It may lead to nine food-related Central Acts and orders being repealed and subject seven more Acts to substantial amendments.

And most importantly, it seeks to bring all food issues, currently spread across these ministries under one umbrella: the Food Processing Ministry.

‘‘Ideally, we should have one law and one regulator on food safety…right now, there are so many authorities. This bill is a single window approach towards one law and one authority. We have taken the JPC recommendation (on colas and pesticides) that there should be one law,’’ says A N P Sinha, nodal officer for the draft bill, in the food processing ministry.

‘‘The central theme of the bill is food safety and consumer rights,’’ says Sinha, about the draft bill that was prepared after studying food laws in countries such as UK, Canada, US, Australia, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.

The Ministry has already circulated the draft bill and sent letters seeking feedback to consumer forums, R&D institutions, industry associations and state governments. And the responses have already started pouring in.

After February 15, the bill will be sent to the Group of Ministers headed by Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar.

However, the bill deals only with branded and processed food and one of the issues that will be up for further discussion is whether agricultural practices need to be included in its gamut.

This remains a sore point for some NGOs active in the sector. ‘‘I don’t think it goes all the way. It doesn’t talk about preventative measures,’’ says Ravi Aggarwal of NGO Toxic Links.

‘‘They have taken existing laws and harmonised them into one law and unified authority. What needs to be done is increase the scope of the law and include sources of food,’’ says Aggarwal.

The argument: 90 per cent of food deals with primary food and any law dealing with food safety should address this aspect.

‘‘This issue (of primary food) is wide open,’’ says Sinha, adding,‘‘one view is that we should gradually bring in primary food. But this is a decision that will be taken by the GoM and Cabinet.’’

The draft bill, which was put together by five ministries—Law, Agriculture, Food Processing, Health and Commerce—aims at setting up a safety and standards authority to regulate manufacture, processing, import, export, distribution of food items.

‘‘The multiplicity of authority was creating a lot of problems… this bill will now ensure that no substandard food product is passed on to the consumer,’’ says another Ministry official.

Other new elements in the bill include an attempt to harmonise with international standards, which essentially means adopting the Codex system as per India’s requirements to facilitate import and export.

Besides, it advocates imprisonment as punitive action for all major violations and hints at setting up special courts. There are 70,000 food-related issues pending in various courts.

The other aspects of the bill have been taken from existing laws and orders: labelling, enforcing standards on imports, crop contaminants, regulation for genetically-modified foods and organic foods.

The bill also focuses considerably on consumers. It gives them the right to get purchased food scrutinised by food analysts and envisages posting commissioners of food safety in every state, apart from inspectors and analysts.