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FSSAI to reward whistleblowers exposing food adulteration
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Thursday, 18 August, 2011, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Irum Khan, Mumbai
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The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has laid down a trap to intercept manufacturers involved in production or marketing of adulterated food items.
To encourage inflow of information from all stakeholders regarding adulterated/unsafe food, the FSSAI has proposed to introduce a scheme of rewards for whistleblowers and informants from the funds being made available to the state governments under a Centrally Sponsored Scheme.
In this regard, Section 95 of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, has a provision for rewards to be given to the whistleblowers who provide any relevant information on food adulteration.
For receiving information under the scheme, a nodal officer will be nominated in each office of the state Food Safety Commissioner and one at the FSSAI headquarters in New Delhi. The names, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, etc. of the nodal officers will be widely publicised.
On receipt of the information, the nodal officer will forward the same to the Food Safety Commissioner in the state or the CEO in the FSSAI headquarters, as the case may be, who will then refer the matter to a Standing Committee comprising three senior officers. If the situation demands immediate action, the matter would be submitted directly to the FSC or CEO as the case may be.
The Authority said that the state government may empower the commissioner of food safety to order payment of reward to the person who renders assistance in the detection of the offence.
The whistleblower could provide any information on the manufacture, storage, distribution, sale or import of any adulterated food article .The actual reward amount under each category will depend on the quantum of food articles for which the information has been provided and could be anywhere between Rs 500 to Rs 50 lakh, depending upon the severity of adulteration/offence.
The state/ UT governments would be allotted funds annually for the disbursal of rewards under the scheme. Also, records of information received under the scheme and the follow-up action would be maintained by the state government and a periodic report submitted to the FSSAI. The subsequent year's allotment of funds would be on the basis of utilisation certificates.
The Authority intends to give a wide publicity to this scheme to ensure general public awareness. Thus, feedback would be taken periodically from all the stakeholders about the implementation of the scheme and its success.
Also, the Section would be appropriately modified by the Authority, if required, on the basis of the feedback received after the first year of the working of the scheme.
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