Jul 31, 2012

Many hotels yet to apply for licence

Punitive action has been postponed by six months
Even as the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India has postponed by six months punitive action against shops that have not renewed their licence under the Food Safety Act, 2006, only a section of hotels in the district have applied for the licence.
A July 25 order by the Enforcement Director of the authority extended the August 4 deadline beyond which action should have been taken.
District Food Safety Officer A. Mohammed Rafi told The Hindu here on Monday that 4,318 hotels in the district had applied for the licence as on Monday. The local bodies had been the licensing authorities before the Act came into effect.
With various pieces of legislation, such as the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954, and the Food Products Order, 1955, annulled, the entire responsibility of licensing has been assigned to the Commissioner for Food Safety. “The licensing work started in March. The number of hotels in the district is yet to be ascertained as the local bodies have not handed over the details related to the previous licensing regimes,” Mr. Rafi said.
Hotels with a turnover of over Rs. 12 lakh should apply for a licence and those with less than that needed registration. “Almost a month ago, I submitted an application for licence to the hotel owners’ association, who will apply on our behalf. But I am yet to hear from them,” Gireeshan A., a hotel owner at West Hill, said. The delinking of local bodies from activities related to food safety had reduced the number of personnel involved and added to the workload of the Food Safety Commissionerate, which is said to be understaffed. “There are only seven staff members to handle all the work related to food safety in Kozhikode district,” Mr. Rafi said.

Leading paan masalas have nicotine?


PATNA: If you thought leading brands of paan masala like Rajnigandha and Manikchand don't contain nicotine, as they claim, give a second thought to it. The state food safety commissioner cum health secretary, Sanjay Kumar, has issued an order to test them for nicotine content after Union health ministry submitted a Central Tobacco Research Institute report recently in the Supreme Court confirming presence of nicotine in them.
Kumar said on Monday he has asked all designated officers and food safety officers to collect samples of all leading paan brands. He said, "Ten samples of leading brands of paan masala would be retested for nicotine. If they are found to contain nicotine, they, too, would be prohibited to effectively impose the ban on tobacco products in the state."
As per the report of Andhra Pradesh-based research institute submitted to the apex court, gutka (Goa 1000), gutka RMD (Manikchand), paan masala (Rajnigandha) and khaini (Chaini Khaini) and khaini (Raja) contain 2.04%, 1.88%, 2.26%, 0.58% and 1.02% nicotine respectively.
The state government banned the sale, distribution and production of nicotine containing products from May this year, based on the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India regulation no 2.3.4 notified in August 2011.
Deepak Mishra, executive director of an NGO, SEEDS, said if these products are found containing nicotine, they must be banned with immediate effect. He added, "After the ban on gutka products, the sale of leading paan masala brands, which people think don't contain nicotine, has increased alarmingly."
Tobacco consumption is the causative factor in 40% cancer cases, the maximum by any factor. According to a survey, 53.5% people in Bihar use tobacco, highest in the country. According to experts, nicotine affects all organs of body from head to toe.
Noted surgeon Dr A A Hai on Monday said, "The most common cancers caused by tobacco are the ones of oral cavity and upper aerodigestive tract. Bronchitis is another common disease caused which causes problems in breathing. Apart from that, eyes, lungs, abdomen, blood, heart vessels and urinary tract are also affected." He added what added to the misery of the suffering families was the high cost of treatment. Pregnant women should avoid tobacco products, especially because that can affect foetus. The consumption of tobacco can also affect reproductive health of both males and females, he said.

How does the wood in your bread, biscuit taste today?

plate of biscuits 
A lot of the high-fibre fast-food packages sold by major food brands most likely contains “wood cellulose” that’s even used by the plastics industry. And the food safety authority is aware about it

Let's start with some first-hand experience, which is very often how curiosity is sparked and questions arise.  


A few months ago, I was wading through an assignment at a factory in an industrial suburb outside Delhi, where a large number of unskilled and semi-skilled workers were employed. Minimum wages in this segment are not very high, and for this category of people, every paisa saved counts. That's what they've left the tough conditions in their rural homes for.


Most of us have absolutely no idea of how this segment lives and survives. Even though they come under the category of organised labour in many cases, protected by law with benefits like ESIC, EPFO and pension plans, what matters is what they get in hand every month and how much of it they are able to save to send home, or to try and buy that elusive plot of land to enable them to build a roof over their heads.


Everything else is nothing but promises, which they have learned not to trust, as it does not get them dinner in the here and now.


Expenses are, therefore, sought to be reduced to the bare minimum. Free meals of the sort provided on certain days at certain places are balanced against the cost of time and travel to get there. Cheap lodging in the vicinity of the factory is balanced against the option of a place to sleep in the factory environs free of cost, perhaps in exchange for some night duty responsibilities.

Education for family members is an aim for which no effort is spared. Likewise, some amount of effort and sacrifice is made towards further self-education, by sacrificing other expenses, and night schools—where they exist—are indeed popular. Free uniforms from the factory are a boon; the older ones are used to sleep in, reducing the necessity of buying clothes.


But what's really interesting is the way they spend on food. As some of them explained, at one time it was cheaper to bring grain, cereals, lentils and even some amount of ghee from the village, and use it during their stay in the city. Now, when they return from their villages, whatever they bring along gets a good price if they sell it, and then they survive on what they can find in the city, in and around the workplace.

The first thing that takes a toss in such conditions is the group-cooked hot meal in the morning. It just doesn't exist, and in lieu it is often a packet of cheap biscuits dipped in the first mug of free tea at work, eaten on the move. Lunch is often a perquisite of the job, huge helpings of roti-daal-subzi-pickle. Dinner is scrounged around. Most of these workers also double up for late evening work where a meal can be sourced.

So, to keep things going when hunger pangs overtake planning, there are the cheap-packed foods of the biscuit sort and the cheap fried foods of the samosa sort, dipped in a cup of 'tea' which is more often than not brewed with urea as a whitener instead of milk at the roadside stall.


The biscuits attracted my attention. Popular big brands selling handy small packs at a "price point" of two to five rupees for 6-12 biscuits, seldom found at the better stores you and I shop at. Taking a bite, dipped in tea, I found that they did not dissolve and break like biscuits used to in the past, and they filled me up admirably, giving me a feeling of fullness in very quick time. At first, I thought it could be excess corn glue binders or baking soda, till I researched the price of corn glue binders and baking soda and wrote that off. So, full of pride that I had discovered a cheaper alternative, I bought a few packets and brought them home, basic "glucose", "chocolate" and "cream". All major brands. So cheap?


Obviously, I was treated to a lecture, that these were simply not healthy. At this point, I thought it was snobbishness talking, but fact remains the biscuits remained untouched for a few days. Everybody prefers "local" bakery biscuits at our home, procured from a charity organisation at the nearby Lajpat Bhavan, or expensive imported ones presented now and then. So after a few days, I thought to myself, maybe the birds and the stray dogs will appreciate them more?


Next morning, along with the bird seed that we have sprinkled on a wall, I laid out some of the biscuits, neatly crumbled, but while the bird seed was gobbled up as usual by about 9am, the biscuits were untouched-even the squirrels who eat everything, left them alone. Same with the stray dogs, a sniff at the "orange cream" biscuit, a bit of a whine, and then left alone. In due course, the ants and the termites presumably finished off the biscuits, because the birds and dogs didn't touch them.


The maid, watching bemused, said that the animals don't eat it because the biscuits have "plastic" in them. Plastic? Where had she heard that from? Turns out that everybody in her village near Ranchi knew about this, because some people from there who worked in a processed factory had told them that the seths were now using an ingredient for bread and biscuits called "cellulose", in quantities from 15% to 25%. How did they know? Because similar packets from the same supplier were being used for the plastic to be used for the wrapping and packaging, as well as to line the insides of the biscuit packaging to prevent the biscuit from going soggy. To prove her point, she crumbled up the biscuits and stirred them into a mug of warm water. After a few minutes, much of what used to be the biscuit was still floating on top. After a few hours it was exactly the same.

Please try this yourself. It is like the "patty" inside the famous McDonalds burger, which does not deteriorate or go bad for days on end.


Around the same time, I had been filing RTI applications on the subject of artificial sweeteners used by the processed food industry, specifically called "aspartame". (Read,
Did you check the neurotoxin in your 'soft' drink today?)      In the course of the responses, which contained the usual evasive answers from the ministries, as well as the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), I also managed to develop some sources within. People like you and me, but unwilling or unable to come on record, but right-thinking all the same.

I decided to approach a few of them to try and find out what was going on, and meanwhile, tried to place a total ban on packaged bread and biscuits at home, rewarding the maid with basic bakery lessons and going in for "
chakki atta" ground at a store. (By the way, the one shop in our area which provides fresh ground atta of various sorts has so much business now that the owner is opening a second shop and provides an increasingly growing range of choices, with exotic grains of all sorts.)

This was when I received my next surprise. Yes, the FSSAI, at an informal level, were aware that there was something being added to processed foods, especially biscuits and bread, for the last few years, and that this new miracle ingredient going under the technological name of 'cellulose' was actually the same 'wood cellulose' used by, among others, the plastics industry, and by an amazing coincidence of nomenclature, was categorised as 'fibre' for all practical purposes, including the list of ingredients. As a matter of fact, within the industry there was growing awareness on the cost-saving benefits of adding more and more wood cellulose to everything, not just bread and biscuits, but also ice cream, cheese, meat . . . and upstream into desserts, pizzas and most other forms of 'fast food'.


So just how did 'wood cellulose' get into the lexicon of the Ministry of Food Processing (MoFP) and the FSSAI as 'fibre'? Well, in one way, it is the truth. Wood cellulose is fibre. The only thing is that unless you share your enzymes with termites, you and I can't digest it. Even woodpeckers can't digest wood cellulose or wood, and they are pecking away at it all the time. Nor could hundreds of thousands of people starving to death in famines from the Siege of Leningrad ,to closer in history in Darfur.

Within the food industry in the US, the FDA apparently permits limited use of wood cellulose under very specific conditions, and up to a maximum of between 1% and 3.5%. And there's no way the manufacturers there can get away by calling it 'fibre'.

Within the food industry in India, welcome to the reality, and check out how many new products on your shop or supermarket shelves carry the added nomenclature 'fibre'. And as per my source/sources in the FSSAI, this is growing at a very rapid pace. The cost of wood cellulose in India, meanwhile, is dropping, because the new miracle raw material for wood cellulose in India is, hold your breath, not just the tree or plant, but sawdust. Processed sawdust = fibre in your bread and biscuit?


At such a rapid pace and with such huge profits on the back of this new trend to put wood cellulose into everything, the processed food industry—riding on the back of these lower prices and huge profits—is making a strong bid once again to enter the mid-day meal space. With an attempt to replace the hot cooked meal with a "high fibre" pre-packaged meal. And as an added incentive, they plan to use the term "fortified and enhanced" with a variety of other ingredients like, for example, iron. This, incidentally, is co-terminus with a strong movement in the developed countries to move away from such processed foods and fast foods.


India, therefore, is the obvious next target. Just like it was with opium for China a few hundred years ago and tobacco in the recent past, it is now going to be wood cellulose masquerading as fibre in our packaged foods.

I wonder, will they use iron sweepings or filings, and will we be able to transport these modern high-fibre fortified with iron biscuits using magnets, soon?

Quality of food: HC seeks report

The Kerala High Court on Monday directed the state to file a detailed report on a petition seeking a directive to the Food Safety Commissioner to ensure that quality food is supplied by hotels and restaurants across the state. The state submitted before the court that 1,400 hotels were raided and action was taken against the offenders in the wake of the death of Sachin Roy Mathew, allegedly after consuming Shawarma.
A Division Bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Manjula Chellur and Justice A M Shaffique issued the directive on a petition filed by Baisil Attipetty of Ernakulam.
The petitioner sought a directive to state to issue an order to Kerala Hotel and Restaurants’ Association and its members to sell food in accordance with the provisions of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006.
The petitioner stated that every citizen has a right to have hygienic and safe food from hotels.
The petitioner also sought a directive to the association to issue a detailed bill for each item they supply to consumers and to display the price list of all the food items sold.

Many waiters carry GERMS ON HANDS

Study Finds Food Handlers Carry E. Coli, Various Dangerous Bugs

    The meal that the waiter has served you appears to be perfect. It looks good, smells great and has just the right quantities of protein, carbohydrates and vitamins. But zoom in at a microscopic level and you’d probably see that also contains the most vile-looking and dangerous germs and bacteria like Escherichia coli (E. coli) and amoebic cysts.
    Not having hair or grime on your plate does not mean that the food served at a restaurant or roadside eatery is safe. A study shows that the hands of many chefs and waiters in the city are infested with deadly micro-organisms.
    The results of the study by Indian Public Health Association have come as a shocker to people who eat out as well as doctors and health department officials. Researchers found E. coli on the hands of nearly 11.2% of the people who handle food in five star hotels. In smaller restaurants, 47% of chefs and waiters had the bacterium, which can cause serious food poisoning, on their hands. The figure rises to 84.7% in roadside eateries.
    Researchers found amoebic cysts on the hands of 11.2% of waiters in roadside eateries. These cysts can cause forms of amoebiasis, from dysentery to amoebic liver abscess, the third most common cause of death (after schistosomiasis and malaria) from parasitic infections.
    What makes eating at roadside kiosks more dangerous is that these units do not follow hygienic practices and have unclean cooking practices. Eateries are often located near open drains or garbage bins. People in the city are also extremely vulnerable to food poisoning.
    It is an extremely scary situation, said IPHA state president Dr S Elango, who led the study. “We did not know these dangers existed before the study,” he said. “Food inspectors often test food quality but rarely check health and hygiene of people who handle food.” The situation could be even worse, he said. “We don’t know if there are other, more serious health risks because our study covered a
limited number of disease causing microorganisms,” he said.
    Dr Elango’s team surveyed 250 restaurants and eateries over six months and checked the hands of 1,000 people who handled food. The subjects’ hands were dipped in distilled water that was then tested in labs. The tests showed that the water contained E. coli and several other dangerous micro-organisms.
    Scientists in the UK and France are now finding that lack of food safety measures could lead to the growth of superbugs that are resistant to antibiotics. Across the globe, experts have called on health officials to step up monitoring and stop superbugs like salmonella and typhimurium from spreading globally.
    City health officer B Kuganatham estimates that at least 65 lakh people in Chennai eat or drink in hotels or eateries at least once every day. The trade licences for hotels and eateries are issued by the
State Food and Drug Safety Authority as per the provisions of the Food Safety Act.
    The law mandates hygienic practices for food handlers — including regular washing of hands with soap, use of disposable gloves, hair covers and clean clothes. A senior member of city’s hotel owner’s association said many restaurants do not follow the prescribed norms.
    “I work in a five star restaurant and we have very stringent rules,” a chef said. “But workers in our kitchens rarely wear gloves or follow other protocol.” Health officials said they often come across breaches of hygiene rules.
    Senior surgical gastroenterologist Dr S M Chandramohan said more than twothirds of his patients with food poisoning or stomach infections had been regularly eating out. Symptoms of stomach infections show up within minutes in some cases and sometimes take days.
    pushpa.narayan@timesgroup.com 

FSSA ineffective in curbing food adulteration cases

The newly notified Food Safety & Standards Act, 2006, does not seem to be effective in curbing adulteration of food articles as is the case with previous Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954.

This has become evident from statistics which show that the Government of Kerala has failed to take stringent action against the issue during the period 2004-2012. An RTI application filed by the Human Rights Defence Forum (HRDF), Kerala, has revealed the details.

D B Binu, general secretary, HRDF, Kerala, said, “Surprisingly, out of the 95,261 samples tested between 2004 and 2012, 2,190 food samples were found to be adulterated and authorities initiated action in only 1,912 cases.”

Binu explained that the information was revealed to the organisation based on the RTI filed by it and further probe in the case evolved based on the number of food adulteration cases being reported in Kerala by the media.

Binu added that it was a sad state of affairs that the court convicted only 660 persons responsible for adulteration, which included reputed hotels, in the state. Also those who were convicted were punished with only Rs 2,000 as fine.

While the remaining 757 persons were acquitted, it was revealed that the maximum number of food adulteration was being reported and detected in the Ernakulam district of Kerala followed by Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode.

Binu stressed that the new law, the FSSA enforced on August 5, 2011, had created a lot of confusion in terms of registration and licensing and also in the implementation of the Act across the nation.

He pointed out that since the new Act failed, several important tasks such as registration and licensing of food labs and prosecution in cases of food adulteration were left incomplete. Hence, he wanted the new law to be implemented properly at the earliest.

The new lords of misrule


Sunita NarainSunita NarainLast fortnight, we began discussing ‘authorities’, and asked: Is this variant of governance reform working? This time, let’s consider the Food Safety and Standards Authority (FSSA). It was created because of a recommendation of the Joint Parliamentary Committee which investigated our report on pesticide content in soft drinks and the lack of standards to regulate contamination in food.

 The concern was the existing structure, based on a committee within the Union ministry of health and family welfare, was inadequate to the challenge of the modern food industry, which is taking over our kitchens. We needed a regulator that erred on the side of public health, to ensure the food on our table met strict standards for toxins, additives and chemicals and enable nutrition, not commerce, to drive the food industry.

Food science has changed, so has the business. In this scenario, regulation had to move away from adulteration-checking inspectors to knowledge-based decisions on the best standards for food. But sadly, the FSSA is increasingly compromised. From the few steps it has taken—its track-record is abysmal—it seems to be not a consumer-friendly but an industryfriendly food regulator.

 A proof is the March 2009 draft regulation on food recall procedure, necessary for incidents like melamine in milk (China) or dioxin in beverages (Europe) or worms in chocolate (India). The draft regulation says it could maintain “confidentiality of commercially sensitive information and could delay public notification of food recall if it will cause panic among consumers”. This is for corporates, not public health. It was no surprise, then, to learn—as we did through media reports—the committees of the FSSA which take ‘scientific’ decisions are stacked high with food industry representatives, officials from beverage and fast-food giants like Pepsico, Coca Cola and Nestle. It is evident corporate regulatory capture is possible, indeed easy, in this form of institutional management. The reason’s not hard to find.

First, FSSA, and other authorities, are created to be independent. But little is done to make them accountable to this objective. The ‘authority’, in nine cases out of ten, is headed by retired, out-of-commission bureaucrats, for these individuals have regulatory experience. But in the new role they are not bound by the government’s established administrative, reporting and personnel systems. Instead, by law, they report to a faceless Parliament. No specific parliamentary sub-committee exists to manage and oversee the work of a newly created authority.

Regulatory capture becomes effortless for powerful interests in the petroleum, food or any sector. What happens, then, is decisions get murkier, undermining all credibility, making the ‘authority’ even less functional or effective. The experience of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board should teach us a lesson or two. Second, an ‘authority’ is created without fixing the underlying problems of sectoral expertise and the need for integration with existing institutional capacity. In other words, no attention is paid to the serious details of institutional reform.

In FSSA’s case, the expertise of standardsetting lies with the Bureau of Indian Standards, but that’s under a different ministry—Consumer Affairs. No real effort’s been made to re-engineer institutional capacity. No clear roles defined. Instead, one more agency’s joined the rigmarole of governance. The situation is the same with environmental impact assessment (EIA) authorities, created in each state to scrutinize and sanction industrial projects.

Till a few years ago, all projects came to the Centre for clearance, leading to delays and seemingly poor decision-making. It was believed decisions devolve to the state level, where environmental impacts are more evident. Assessment would be easier. But all this was done without thinking through the institutional design, and all it has ended up doing is to decentralize the ‘transaction cost’. EIA decisions are not being taken for the environment. Indeed, regulatory capacity is seriously missing in the area of environment. My colleagues recently evaluated the working of state pollution control boards and found, to their horror, nobody’s made the institutions functional. They lack funds, personnel and capacity to ensure enforcement and compliance. In most cases, they are toothless bodies, made dysfunctional via neglect. The challenge should be to build internal capacity. But internal reform is difficult. So the government’s taken the easy way: bypass, and just create new institutions.

For instance, the state EIA authorities have been set up as committees, headed by former bureaucrats or similarly experienced individuals, but without internal capacity to evaluate projects and no clarity on the interface with existing pollution regulators. These bodies meet, clear projects and go away. Somebody is ‘responsible’ for assessment and somebody else is ‘responsible’ for monitoring future impacts. So how can we have effective decision-making? The current institutional ‘design’ is not for public purpose. It needs review, fast. Could we have institutions that can tackle future challenges? ■

Registration under the Food Safety Act - Deadline for food joints extended by six months

Amritsar, July 30
The deadline for restaurants, eating outlets and grocery stores keeping food products to get registered under the Food Safety Act has been extended by another six months. Earlier deadline was August 4.
Amrit Lal Jain, vice-president, Bharatiya Udhyog Beopar Mandal, an all-India body of traders, said he has received a copy of the decision from the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
He said a delegation of the BUBM had met Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad in this regard in June.
Jain said the FSA was copied from the developed countries and implemented without keeping in view the domestic conditions. He said the country does not have adequate number of laboratories to test the quality of food. Claiming that the number of these labs was less than 100, Jain demanded that each district of the country must have at least one such lab.
Meanwhile, the Punjab Pradesh Beopar Mandal, the state unit under the BUBM, will hold agitation against the FSA on August 9 in the state, including Amritsar.

Will seize gutkha, won’t destroy yet, govt tells HC

The state government on Monday informed the Bombay High Court that while it would continue to confiscate gutkha being sold or transported in violation of a ban order issued on July 19, it would not destroy the seized products.
Manufacturers pleaded the ban had brought their businesses to a halt, and urged the court to restrain the government from preventing the transport of gutkha to other states that allow its sale.
Dhariwal Industries Private Limited, Ghodavat Paan Masala Products, Rajnandini Foods Private Limited, SDD Agencies Private Limited and Hira Enterprises had petitioned the court urging it to set aside the ban, which invoked the Food Safety and Standards Act (FSSA), 2006.
Arguing for the manufacturers, senior counsel Milind Sathe said that the government notification had, apart from prohibiting the sale and distribution of gutkha and paan masala, also put curbs on storing and transporting gutkha. “We want to transport our product to states that have no ban. They (state government) should not take any action against us,” Sathe said. Senior counsel Janak Dwarkadas added that the product has a short shelf life.
Sathe said the government had instructed its officers to destroy seized gutkha. He urged the bench to direct the government not to do so until a final decision. Chief Justice Mohit Shah said, “But somebody might continue to manufacture.”
Government pleader D A Nalavade told the court that gutkha had a shelf life of six months. He said that while the government would not permit the transport of gutkha to other states and confiscate consigments, it would not begin to destroy the seized material until the court heard the case further.
Adjourning the case, Chief Justice Shah and Justice N M Jamdar asked the state government to file its reply by August 7.
Arguing for the petitioners, senior counsel Navroz Seervai told the court that the ban is nothing but an “attempt to overrule by legislation a judgment of the Supreme Court”.
“Entire industries cannot be closed down because of somebody’s whims,” Seervai said.
The state had earlier attempted to ban gutkha in 2002 and in 2008, but had encountered several legal hurdles. Seervai said that the sale of gutkha, that contains tobacco, can be governed only by the Tobacco Act, 2003, and not by the FSSA.
The manufacturers have contended that gutkha, which contains 6-8 per cent tobacco, has no nutritional value and hence cannot be brought under the purview of the FSSA that deals with “food”. Mere oral consumption would not bring gutkha under the FSSA as it is not consumed for taste or nutrition but for pleasure, the petitioners have said.
Government counsel Nalavade also informed the court that another petition filed by an association of dealers seeking unrestricted transportation of gutkha before another bench of the court, had been withdrawn.

Deadline for registration, licence renewal extended

Food business operators have got a breather as the deadline for licence registration as per the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 has been extended by six months. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India has also directed that nutraceuticals, proprietary foods, organic foods and genetically modified foods have to get their products approved failing which licences will be cancelled.
FSSA came into effect on August 5 last year and is expected to regulate manufacturing, storage, distribution, sale and import of food items.
The law enables consumers to register complaints against defaulters. FDA Commissioner Mahesh Zagade told Newsline that Maharashtra was way ahead of other states in registering and renewing licences of food business operators. As many as 1.29 lakh registrations and 61,789 licences have been issued since August last year.
Shashikant Kekare, Joint Commissioner, Food, Pune division said that the deadline to renew and issue licences to food business operators was August 4 this year. However, it has now been extended for another six months. In Pune division, FDA officials have renewed as many as 25,185 licences as per the FSSA and as many as 13,045 licences that were to expire in 2012 or 2014.
Pune division has earned a revenue of Rs 12 crore as part of the drive to issue and renew licences. Maharashtra as a whole earned a revenue of Rs 43 crore.
At a meeting in New Delhi, S N Mohanty, CEO, FSSAI, had said there were certain grey areas since the Act was operationalised as some states were giving licences under the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act instead of the FSSA.
Maharashtra FDA officials said that the Act was new and hence there was still a lack of understanding. Zagade said that a monitoring system had been developed for implementing FSSA.
Paan masala worth Rs 4.56 lakh seized
PUNE: A total of 706 rounds of inspection have been conducted by FDA officials in Pune division (that includes Pune, Solapur, Satara,
Sangli and Kolhapur) since July 20. Gutkha and paan masala worth Rs 11.3 lakh have been seized. As many as 25 food safety officers are involved in conducting the raids and the maximum amount of gutkha and paan masala worth Rs 4.56 lakh has been seized from the city.

A total of 4,188 packets and 39 kg of gutkha was seized, FDA officials said.