FSSAI to notify junk food guidelines for schools

The move comes after Delhi HC had given FSSAI three months in a hearing end-July to do so

The country's apex food regulator has put up draft guidelines on its website intended to monitor the consumption of junk food by school children. The move comes after the Delhi High Court had given the Food Safety & Standards Authority of India three months in a hearing end-July to do so.

The July judgement was in response to a public interest suit moved in 2010 by a non-government organisation, Uday Foundation.

The NGO had raised the issue of easy availability of junk food and carbonated drinks to children and had sought a ban on these food items in schools.

Under the draft guidelines, which were first submitted to the court last year, food high in fat, salt or sugar will not be sold within 50 metres of a school's premises.

This includes an array of food & beverages commonly consumed by school children including chips, ready-to-eat noodles, pizzas, burgers, sugar-sweetened carbonated and non-carbonated drinks, potato fries (commonly called French fries) and confectionery items.

The draft guidelines have also suggested creation of a canteen policy and school health education programmes to make students and parents aware about the ill-effects of unhealthy food habits.

The guidelines if notified could bring about a paradigm shift in how food is consumed in schools in India. Food & beverage companies such as PepsiCo were not available for comments at the time of going to press. A Coca-Cola India spokesperson said that the company did not sell its products in school premises.

An ITC spokesperson said that the firm was yet to go through the draft guidelines.

Arvind Verma, secretary-general, Indian Beverage Association, whose members include all the top beverage companies in the country, also said that it would have to go through the guidelines before commenting about it.

But some executives when contacted privately said they were not sure to what extent these guidelines would be implemented once notified. "While the move is good, I am not sure how much of this will really translate on the ground. The draft guidelines are detailed indicating what should be and should not be consumed in schools. There could be some resistance to it. The industry will prepare its response appropriately," the CEO of a top food company said when contacted.

The Centre for Science & Environment (CSE), the Delhi-based activist body, however, said that today's development was important in terms of implementation of the guidelines, which had been languishing for a while. The body, which had first welcomed the draft guidelines when it was accepted by the Delhi High Court in March this year, maintained that restriction of junk food was an important step to curb its consumption among children.