No appetite for food safety

States must enhance safety mechanisms

Much of the food Indians eat may be more detrimental to their health than they know. This was the key finding of the 2022-23 State Food Safety Index (SFSI), prepared by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI). It showed a general decline in state food-safety scores over the past five years. The FSSAI started the survey in 2018-19 as an annual evaluation of states and Union Territories to create a competitive and positive change in the country’s food-safety ecosystem. It is notable that it began a few years after Swiss multinational Nestle’s Maggi instant noodles brand was banned by most states and large retail outlets for about six months after failing random food-safety tests. Over the past five years, the FSSAI said, 19 out of 20 large Indian states have experienced a decline in their 2022-23 SFSI scores over 2019. The states with the steepest fall included Maharashtra, Bihar, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh. Three of these states — Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Andhra Pradesh — are leading contributors to the food-processing industry. All three saw their index scores almost halve. Maharashtra saw its index score fall from 74 to 45, Gujarat from 73 to 48.5, and Andhra from 47 to 24. The latest index also introduced a new parameter — “Improvement in SFSI Rank”. After adjusting for this parameter, 15 of the 20 states recorded lower SFSI scores in 2022-23 over what they were five years earlier. This parameter carried a weighting of 10 per cent in the index. Only one state — Punjab — showed a significant improvement; but 14 of the 20 received zero points.
 

The most worrying aspect of the latest survey is that it indicated a deterioration in the role of the states’ food-safety enforcement apparatus. For instance, the parameter with the steepest fall was “Food Testing Infrastructure”. The average score for all large states dropped from 13 out of 20 in 2019 to seven out of 17 in 2022-23. Again, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh were among the worst performers on this index — and so was Kerala, which, ironically, ranked first among the big states on the latest index. Scores for the parameter that measures compliance —which covers licensing, registration, and inspection of food businesses — also declined. In 2022-23, the average compliance score stood at 11 out of 28; in 2019, it was 16 out of 30. The parameter covering human resources and institutional data (which includes the number of food-safety officers and the adjudications and appellate tribunals) also dropped sharply — even for top performers.
 

Evidence of this sharp institutional decline in state food-safety establishments comes at a time when the government has sought to encourage investment in the food-processing industry. In 2021, it introduced a scheme under its signature production-linked incentive (PLI) programme with a Rs 10,900 crore outlay, mostly to encourage exports. The food-processing industry in general has long performed below potential for lack of investment in basic infrastructure such as cold chains. As a result, large amounts of fresh fruit and vegetables go to waste each year. The PLI was the Centre’s attempt to address this structural problem. But for the industry to reach critical mass, states urgently need to create efficient regulatory and enforcement mechanisms to ensure that the Indian industry develops a reputation for safety in competitive global markets.