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Supreme Court pulls FSSAI up for not curbing sale of adulterated milk
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Monday, 08 August, 2016, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Ashwani Maindola, New Delhi
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fiogf49gjkf0d The Supreme Court pulled the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) up for not taking adequate action to curb the sale of adulterated milk.
Hearing a petition on milk adulteration, the apex court proposed several directives for the Centre and state to implement the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, in a more effective manner to curb the malpractice.
These include snap surveys to identify risk zones and taking appropriate steps to inform dairy owners and retailers of the consequences if chemical adulterants like pesticides and caustic soda are found in milk.
Further, the state governments have been asked to ensure that state and district food testing laboratories are equipped with technical persons and testing facilities and run awareness campaigns in schools for the same. State governments have also been urged to strengthen the infrastructure duly accredited.
A bench comprising chief justice T S Thakur and justices R Banumathi and U U Lalit recommended life imprisonment for those found guilty of food adulteration.
Under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, food adulteration is punishable with imprisonment up to six months and a fine.
However, states like Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Odisha have amended the Indian Penal Code to treat adulteration of food products as a serious offence, for which punishment could extend to life imprisonment.
“Considering the seriousness of the offence, it is important that similar amendments are made in other states as well,” the apex court, in its ruling, stated, taking into account the changes in laws brought in by the states.
It added that the Centre must revisit the Act to revise the punishment for adulteration, making it more stringent.
In 2012, a public interest litigation was filed by Swami Achutanand Tirth and others before the apex court highlighting the growth in the sales of adulterated and synthetic milk in different parts of the country.
The petitioners presented before the court that a January 2, 2011 report titled Executive Summary on National Survey on Milk Adulteration, 2011, released by FSSAI, concluded that 68.4 per cent of milk sold at the national level is adulterated.
It was alleged that the worst performers in the survey were Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, West Bengal, Mizoram, Jharkhand and Daman and Diu, where adulteration in milk was found to be up to 100 per cent. In the states of Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh, 88 per cent of milk samples were found adulterated.
Meanwhile, according to sources, FSSAI has already started working on a new milk survey. Further it has also started work on new milk standards that will be notified soon. These will reframe the definition of adulterated milk and fat content.
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