No overreach in Maggi row: FSSAI CEO

My biggest worry would be whether a child is consuming excessive lead or not. That's my concern: Yudhvir Malik

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), which had ordered recall of Nestle’s Maggi noodles from store shelves across the country on June 5, has said its worry and concern is whether there’s lead or any other contamination in what a child is consuming, much more than if the industry is living in fear of action from regulator.

When asked whether he agreed with a perception in certain quarters that there was an overreach by the regulator in ordering the recall, FSSAI CEO Yudhvir Malik asked, “Do you think there’s been an overreach?’’ Then, breaking his silence ever since Nestlé India had moved the Bombay High Court against the FSSAI order in June, Malik said, “It would have been an overreach if my order to recall was a knee-jerk action based only on an isolated sample or on the test results from only the Kolkata lab…. Six states had already banned Maggi noodles before the FSSAI order.’’ Uttar Pradesh, which was the first state to find contamination in the Maggi noodles samples, had got the same tested at the Kolkata referral lab.

Read more from our special coverage on "NESTLE MAGGI CONTROVERSY"

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• Now, food regulator finds gap in Mysuru lab report on Maggi
• FSSAI trashes all-clear reports to Maggi from Goa, Mysore labs
• Gujarat extends ban on Maggi noodles by a month
• Bihar bans 11 noodle brands; ITC, HUL and Glaxo among them

Replying to a question on whether there was an environment of fear and worry, Malik said, “My biggest worry would be whether a child is consuming excessive lead or not. That’s my concern. If as a parent, I am concerned about my child, I should be concerned about others’ children too.”

Earlier, Food Processing Minister Harsimrat Kaur had said there was an environment of fear as a prominent multinational had to pull back its products from the market and destroy packets worth Rs 360 crore.

On Thursday, Consumer Affairs Minister Ramvilas Paswan told the media Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked for maintaining decorum on the Maggi issue.

A government official tracking the Maggi issue, said whenever there are provisions of enforcement, ‘’it will always result in annoyance of some and happiness of others”. He pointed out that it should not be seen as a fear psychosis because it is not the first time that a multinational is facing a recall. ‘’It happens in other parts of the world too.’’             

Meanwhile, Goa Food and Drugs Administration (FDA), which was at the centre of controversy, for sending its samples to the Mysuru appellate referral facility, opted to play down any clash between the Centre and the states. Goa FDA Director Salim Veljee stated, “We (central food regulator and state bodies) are all in the same family. Nobody’s rubbishing anybody else.’’ Ultimately, the consumer should benefit, he said.                         

A day after Goa FDA released the Mysuru sample results of Maggi noodles that it complied with food safety rules of the country, FSSAI in a statement said there was no mention of a test for monosodium glutamate (MSG) in the CFTRI report, and that the regulator had not given the instant noodles a clean chit. Maggi noodles was recalled in June because some states had found presence of MSG and excessive lead content in the samples.

Veljee said the Mysuru lab complied with the advisory issued by FSSAI to food commissioners on June 8, on testing of noodles, pasta and macaroni. The parameters — for general, quality, metal and toxic substance tests — contained in that advisory do not mention MSG.             

An FSSAI official reiterated that the regulator’s recall order was not based on the Goa FDA findings.

As FSSAI had detected deficiencies in the Goa report earlier, the state opted for a second analysis at the pollution control board and a third one at Mysuru’s CFTRI which gave its findings earlier this week. ‘’All we said about the Mysuru lab result was that MSG was not mentioned. We did not imply anything else.’’

Even as there are suggestions that the level of quality checks is more rigorous at the Goa manufacturing plant of Nestle as it is used mostly for exporting noodles to eight countries, FSSAI officials refused to comment on that. They, however, pointed out that the UK regulator had not shared the details of its findings with FSSAI even after several requests.

The UK and Singapore are among the countries that gave a clean chit to Maggi noodles manufactured in India after the product was recalled from Indian stores. FSSAI said it sought details of the UK and Singapore tests from Nestle, but has not received yet from the company.