The Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare, J P Nadda has stressed on the need to have safe and wholesome food, and local manufacturing of food products under the ‘Make in India’ campaign of the Government of India.
The Health Minister informed that the Ministry along with the FSSAI is working to streamline the process for time-bound approval of food products. This will not only clear the approval of several pending proposals for food products but will also give the much needed push to the domestic food processing industry, the Health Minister noted, while not compromising with quality and safety of the food products. He further stated that in order to ensure the quality and safety of food products, various issues pertaining to regulation under the FSSAI Act 2006 were discussed at the meeting, including the mechanism for ‘product approval’.
In order to ensure that food that is consumed is safe, healthy and wholesome, and the manufacturing process adheres to standards and procedures under the mandate of the Food Safety and Standard Authority (FSSA) Act 2006, the Health Minister held a review meeting, in New Delhi recently. Present at the meeting were stakeholders from the food processing industries; Secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion; Secretary, Department of Food Processing; Chairman & CEO, Food Safety and Standard Authority of India (FSSAI), and officials of the Department of Health and Family Welfare.