Government to implement Food Security Act in all states by next month

Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has launched the state's own food security scheme. The scheme has been introduced to benefit 25 lakh people, who were left out from the National Food Security Act (NFSA).

Chief Minister has launched the scheme after interacting with people of four districts, including Bolangir, Balasore, Sundergarh and Mayurbhanj, through video conferencing from the State Secretariat.

"We had made a promise in 2014 and I am happy that we have kept our promise to provide food to the people. I will not allow any single beneficiary to be left out under the scheme," he stated.

The beneficiaries will get 5 kg of rice per person per month at a rate of Rs 1 per kg. Rs 443.5 crore per annum will be spent by the state government to support the scheme. While Rs 221.75 crore will be spent in the current financial year.

Patnaik added, "The UPA had started the food security scheme and ensured subsidised rice to different states at Rs 3-4 only. The state government is making tall claims about its own food security scheme. All these moves are part of vote-bank politics."

Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) chief executive Pawan Agarwal said “The government will establish a self-regulation platform for food companies, retailers stocking packaged food and fastfood restaurant chains. The move will help benchmark them against the best in class, thus raising standards and making companies mindful of rules and consumers. This will encourage healthy competition among companies, retailers and QSR chains and will be an open platform for consumers to see for themselves. The companies will be ranked on basis of their declarations and the platform will also mention names of companies which haven't shared the required information.

Companies such as Hindustan Unilever, PepsiCo, Nestle, Parle Products, Danone, ITC, Patanjali and Mondelez, retailers like Walmart and Future Group, Aditya Birla Retail and Spencer’s Retail and quick service restaurant (QSR) chains including KFC and McDonald’s will be put on an equal self-compliance footing under the plan.

FSSAI’s “food safety and shared responsibility” score will be a publicly accessible online platform for companies to rate themselves against parameters such as compliance with regulations, nutritive content, dealing with consumer grievances, upstream and downstream supply chain capacity and promoting food safety in schools. It’s been dubbed ReFoc for responsible food companies score.

Agarwal also said “By engagement, sharing, cross-learning and healthy competition, we want to raise the bar not only for food safety but make foods businesses more responsive to consumers and government regulation. As we move forward, we will make this matrix more robust.”

The regulator has invited the top 200 companies by sales to join the platform in the first phase of the self-regulation exercise. The FSSAI said it will make public names of companies that don’t want to participate.

Nestle, the country's largest packaged foods maker, welcomed the move and said in a statement “We believe in providing, transparent and responsible communication to the consumers as well as other stakeholders. We welcome initiatives which encourage sharing of information and will continue to engage with all relevant stakeholders on this subject.”

HUL Spokesperson said “This will not only encourage the food business to take full responsibility of food safety but also ensure that regulators can review with consistency the efforts being made by the companies on safety and hygiene”.

Danone India managing director Rodrigo Lima said “Food safety cannot be the responsibility of the regulator alone, self-regulation by food businesses and awareness of consumers will go a long way in creating an atmosphere of trust and quality. This resonates well with our mission of bringing health through food to as many people as possible.”

KFC MD India said “We are committed to contribute to the larger objective of ensuring health, hygiene and safety standards for consumers and proactively working on bringing global best practices and driving knowledge sharing programmes with the regulators”.

Meghalaya Chief Minister Mukul Sangma slammed the Centre for not including sugar under the National Food Security Act, 2013 and said the state will provide one kg sugar to every household in the state.

Sangma said, "The Centre has failed to listen to us and discontinued the distribution of sugar from the programme (NFSA). But we have decided to work out the modalities from our own resources to continue providing sugar apart from rice."

He said, "Though we will not be able to provide 3 kg per household, we will continue to give sugar at 1 kg per household from the state's own resources."

Meghalaya is the only state in the country to provide 3 kg packaged sugar under the National Food Security programme, but the distribution of sugar has been recently withdrawn by the Central Government.

The Chief Minister also distributed certificates of appreciation to wholesalers and fair price shop dealers as a token of the state government's appreciation for their contribution in successfully implementing the National Food Security Act (NFSA), 2013.

He added, "The state government has been able to address the challenges of implementation of the Act in terms of distribution through the active support and partnership of different stakeholders, particularly the wholesalers and fair price shop dealers."

According to Sangama, the programme is a mark of acknowledgement by the government for their hard work and all the hardship they have to undergo in lifting, handling and transporting the commodities to make them reach to the beneficiaries.

The Chief Minister termed the National Food Security Mission as the biggest Food Security Programme in the world.

He said, "It is a commitment of the Government designed for the needy which has been mandated by a law which is binding on the authorities to take care of the citizens."