Why does India’s food safety system need a Clint Eastwood?

Why in the News

India’s food safety regulation fails at disclosure and enforcement rather than at data collection. Between May and July a Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration drive led by a 2005 batch Indian Administrative Service officer inspected 3,137 restaurants, issued 764 improvement notices and shut 165 eateries.

What is FoSCoS?

1. The regulator’s integrated digital platform: The Food Safety Compliance System (FoSCoS) is the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India’s single platform for licensing, inspections, laboratory results and penalties, with the compliance chain digitised and connected.
2. The designed sequence: A violation is found, a laboratory test is ordered, results are analysed, an audit is conducted, adjudication follows, a penalty issues and the establishment is closed.
3. The record is held, never published: The platform accumulates violation data that never reaches the person choosing where to eat.

Why does the enforcement chain stall?

1. The design is a series of checkpoints: A violation sits in audit, then in adjudication, then in enforcement.
2. No step carries a closing clock: Each checkpoint can hold a file indefinitely, so a violation is never formally disposed of.
3. The system has more blockers than doers: The count of officers who can stop a file exceeds the count who can conclude one, so enforcement resumes only when a senior officer personally drives it.

What did the Maharashtra drive actually demonstrate?

1. A crackdown is not a system: The drive produced closures at a scale the routine machinery had not, using powers the routine machinery already held.
2. A folk hero is evidence of failure: Celebrating an enforcement officer amounts to conceding that the enforcement design does not work without one.
3. The output is not durable: An enforcement wave attached to one officer’s posting ends with that posting, and the platform returns to recording violations nobody acts on.

What do the disclosure regimes elsewhere show?

1. Singapore publishes the result where the customer stands: Inspections and rules resemble India’s. A failed inspection produces a rating displayed on the storefront and online.
2. The pressure that works is commercial: The owner fears customers who see a failed grade and walk away, not the inspector or the fine. Revenue falls the same week and the problem is fixed at once.
3. Denmark and Australia publish within days: Violations become public within days and the media carries them.
4. Publication also disciplines the regulator: A lenient district looks bad against a neighbouring district’s published record, so an official cannot let files sit unseen.

Why would publication work where inspection has not?

1. The system is built for the wrong user: The compliance chain is designed for the convenience of the regulator, and the customer, who bears the risk, sees none of its output.
2. Automatic publication is the specific proposal: Violation data should go public online within 48 hours, in food delivery apps and in restaurant windows, so a customer knows before ordering.
3. A working regulator is invisible: Countries with published hygiene ratings generate no news coverage of their food safety enforcers, because enforcement there is routine rather than exceptional.

Where else would published regulatory data change behaviour?

1. Real estate: Buyers cannot tell whether a building was flagged for structural problems. Municipal violation history displayed in property listings would move demand away from flagged buildings and force developers to remedy them.
2. Television channels: Official data exists on complaints against news channels for fake news, hate speech and bias, and never appears at the point where a viewer chooses a channel.
3. Schools: Education departments inspect schools and record violations that parents never see while comparing institutions.
4. Hospitals: Data on doctor complaints, disciplinary action and malpractice cases is held and withheld, so a patient chooses on reputation alone.

Challenges to the food safety regulator’s enforcement design

1. Testing capacity and procedure are the weak link: An enforcement order stands only if the sampling and laboratory chain behind it survives challenge. Eg. The 2015 national recall order on Maggi noodles was set aside by the Bombay High Court in August 2015, partly over how the samples had been tested.
   The Fix: Accredit a referral laboratory for every zone and publish its sample turnaround time against a fixed standard.
2. Penalties are capped in absolute rupees: A ceiling fixed in the statute does not scale with the turnover of the business penalised. Eg. Section 52 of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 caps the penalty for sub-standard food at Rs 5 lakh.
   The Fix: Link the penalty for a repeat violation to declared annual turnover rather than to a flat statutory ceiling.
3. Most food businesses are registered rather than licensed: Small operators below a turnover threshold need only registration, which carries a lighter inspection and record obligation. Eg. Street food vendors and small eateries fall almost entirely into the registration category.
   The Fix: Extend a simplified published hygiene grade to registered outlets, so the lighter compliance route still produces a visible signal.
4. The regulator sets standards and does not enforce them: Designated officers and food safety officers are appointed and paid by State commissioners, so the national platform records violations that no national authority can act on. Eg. An enforcement drive in one State changes nothing about a chain’s outlets in the next State.
   The Fix: Publish State-wise enforcement counts and pendency on the platform, so a State’s inaction is visible against its neighbours.

Conclusion

The instrument that would change behaviour is already built and already loaded, and it is pointed at the regulator instead of at the customer. Disclosure converts a compliance record into a commercial consequence, which is the one pressure a restaurant answers within the week. What is worth watching is whether any State food safety commissioner makes publication automatic and time-bound rather than discretionary, since the platform holding the data is national and the decision to open it is not.

Laws and Rules Governing Food Safety Regulation

1. Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006: Consolidated the earlier food laws into a single statute and created the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India as the standard-setting regulator.
2. It repealed the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954, which had governed food adulteration for five decades.
3. Food Safety and Standards (Licensing and Registration of Food Businesses) Regulations, 2011: Split food businesses into registration and licensing categories by turnover and scale of operation.
4. Food Safety and Standards (Labelling and Display) Regulations, 2020: Fixed the mandatory declarations and the display obligations for food service establishments.
5. Consumer Protection Act, 2019: Created the Central Consumer Protection Authority, which acts against misleading advertisements and unsafe goods independently of the food regulator.

Government Initiatives for Food Safety

1. Eat Right India: The regulator’s national movement combining regulatory measures, industry self-compliance and consumer awareness on safe and healthy food.
2. Food Safety Training and Certification (FoSTaC): Mandatory training and certification of food safety supervisors for licensed food businesses.
3. Clean Street Food Hub and Eat Right Station certification: Audited hygiene certification for street food clusters and railway stations.
4. BHOG, Blissful Hygienic Offering to God: Hygiene certification programme for places of worship that prepare and distribute prasad.

[2018] Consider the following statements:

1. The Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 replaced the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954.

2. The Food Safety and Standard Authority of India (FSSAI) is under the charge of Director General of Health Services in the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

(a) 1 only

(b) 2 only

(c) Both 1 and 2

(d) Neither 1 nor 2