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Two more national labs in Chennai and Mumbai with testing of GM foods
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Friday, 25 September, 2020, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Ashwani Maindola, New Delhi
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The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has sought proposals for setting up two National Food Laboratories (NFLs) in Chennai and Mumbai. Currently FSSAI has two NFLs, one for Northern India in Ghaziabad (NCR) and second at Kolkata for Eastern India.
According to an FSSAI official, the apex food regulator intends to set up two more, for south in Chennai and for west in Mumbai and provision for molecular biology would also be made in these labs keeping in view future requirement of GMO testing in food products.
As reported by FnB News earlier, FSSAI will set up the labs at Chennai Port Trust, in Chennai, and JNPT Mumbai, and the labs would run on PPP mode (public-private partnership).
The monthly average of import related samples at these ports was more than 700 for CPT and more than 3,000 for JNPT during 2019-20, respectively. FSSAI says that the laboratories to be set up should have the competency and capability for testing of quality and safety parameter in all food products as per Food Safety and Standards Regulations (FSSR) with accreditation as per ISO 17025:2017 by National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL).
The food products imported through these ports include vegetables, fruits, nuts, coffee, tea, spices, oil, essential oils, preparations of cereals flour starch or milk, sugar, confectionery, cocoa, modified starches, enzymes, vegetable extracts, beverages, dairy products, cereals, fish, oil seeds and meat.
In the last three years, in Chennai port, nearly 20,753 samples were tested while in Mumbai around 94,219 samples were sent for testing.
It is pertinent to mention here that in the performance audit report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee and the CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General) of India, questions were raised on gaps in food lab infrastructure in the country. Later the Union Health Ministry had entrusted FSSAI to implement a Central sector scheme of upgrading the lab infrastructure in the states as well as establish its own labs across the country, wherein FSSAI's Ghaziabad lab is running in PPP mode, Kolkata lab is owned fully by the apex food regulator and in Mumbai and Chennai, labs will run in PPP mode.
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