New Delhi, March 21 (IANS) The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has deployed 285 Food Safety on Wheels (FSW) to check adulteration in food items in 35 states and Union Territories, the Parliament was told on Friday.
“FSWs are equipped with basic infrastructure for on-spot testing of adulteration in various food commodities. Currently, 285 FSWs are deployed across 35 states/UTs,” Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Prataprao Jadhav told the Lok Sabha in a written reply.
The FSSAI was established in 2008 under the Food Safety and Standards Act, of 2006, to ensure the availability of safe and wholesome food for human consumption.
It was primarily set up to lay down science-based standards for articles of food and to regulate their manufacture, storage, distribution, sale, and import.
The FSSAI also conducts periodic pan-India surveillance of food products, especially staple foods and commodities that are prone to adulteration, to ascertain the quality and safety of the food products produced and consumed in India.
“For testing of various food commodities, the FSSAI has notified 243 primary laboratories and 22 referral laboratories across the country,” Jadhav said.
The food regulator has also published a comprehensive set of resources for food safety and analysis, including manuals on methods of analysis of various food commodities (17), general guidelines on sampling (2), and methods for the analysis of fortificants in fortified foods (15), the MoS added.
Further, the FSSAI has facilitated rapid food testing methods to reduce the screening time of food products at the field level and accelerate surveillance as well as monitoring activities.
“About 79 Rapid Analytical Food Testing (RAFT) kits are approved by the FSSAI,” Jadhav said.
Another is the Food Safety Magic Boxes which facilitate the detection of adulteration in food.
It consists of reliable “quick screening tests” that a common person can perform at the household level, enabling a broad assessment of potential adulteration in their food in cases of doubt, the Minister said.
–IANS
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