Streamlining Food Safety Compliance Ecosystem in India

Abstract

Noting interlinkages of food safety with food security, public health, trade, economy, employment and poverty alleviation, the United Nations General Assembly designated June 7th as World Food Safety Day in 2018. On the eve of the first World Food Safety Day, the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi, stated that since ‘food safety is of prime importance for the well-being and health of our nation as well as its people, particularly women and children’, the Government of India ‘is focused on implementing the latest and best standards of food safety in the country’. For streamlining India’s food safety compliance ecosystem, this report argues that it should be – 1. based on best available science; 2. rational, risk-based, robust, resilient and predictable (vis-à-vis design); 3. consistent and transparent (vis-à-vis enforcement); 4. easily accessible and understandable for all stakeholders; 5. use most innovative and least burdensome tools for achieving regulatory objectives.