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Regulatory vacuum in dealing with GM food, says FSSAI chief
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SME Times News Bureau | 14 Aug, 2018
Calling Genetically Modified (GM) food a "contentious issue", FSSAI
Chief Executive Pawan Kumar Agarwal on Monday said there is a regulatory
vacuum in dealing with the transgenic food.
Agarwal's comment
incomes in the wake of a recent laboratory findings by the non-profit
Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), which showed as many as 21 of
the randomly picked 65 food products from different retail outlets in
the country were found GM-positive.
"GM food is very contentious
issue. There is a regulatory vacuum. It is taking time since the GM
issue is still evolving. We are working on regulations and we hope the
draft will be ready soon. We expect it will clear uncertainty over the
GM food," Agarwal told reporters here.
The Food Safety and
Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) is considering labelling food that
have GM ingredients of 5 per cent or more.
Agarwal refused to share salient features of the draft saying they are still under consideration.
However,
he said, the "procedural regulations" would consider risk assessment of
the GM food items to be introduced for public consumption, their
scientific examination and provisions of appeal for companies against
rejection of their products.
He said the draft will be submitted to the government in three-four weeks.
Agarwal
admitted that action against adulteration and safety enforcement are
not being done at required scale due to lack of manpower with the food
safety regulator.
"Our country is big. We agree that enforcement
is not happening at the level it should be. There is need to make it
stronger. But the FSSAI does not have its own enforcement staff," he
said.
"There is a proposal under consideration to build staff for
enforcement. Then enforcement can be done properly with the help of
states."
Agarwal made an appeal to the people to not believe in
rumours of "plastic eggs" being sold in the markets saying storage and
transport of eggs in higher temperature bring about differences in the
smell, texture and appearance.
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