The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has proposed s to adopt 46 food additive standards previously issued by the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution’s Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). A similar draft notice published by FSSAI in June 2016 also stipulated that FSSAI would accept comments from World Trade Organization (WTO) member countries for a period of 60 days following publication on the WTO’s website, which occurred in September. Subsequently, the 60-day comment period for WTO members expired on November, 2016.
FSSAI’s standard practice for all draft notifications is to provide a 30-day comment period for domestic stakeholders after the original draft notification, and then an additional 30 days for domestic stakeholders after the notification is gazetted (but still not finalized).
WTO members are afforded one 60-day comment period after the original draft notification on FSSAI’s website. The objective of this practice is an attempt to provide 60 days to interested parties regarding comments. Foreign, nongovernmental stakeholders such as industry bodies or others (e.g. those not covered under the ‘WTO member’ category) that would like to comment can provide their comments to their importers and/or Indian interactors. According to guidance from FSSAI, Indian stakeholders can forward these comments to FSSAI during the abovementioned 30-day domestic stakeholder comment period.