Adulterators beware, govt to crack the whip

CHENNAI: The state will soon take on the scourge of spurious drugs and adulterated food with the formation of a unified commissionerate of food and drug safety.
The state health department will form the commissionerate under the Food Safety and Standard Act, 2006, which will replace the Prevention of Food Adulteration (PFA) Act, 1954, on August 5.
The new body will also be empowered to enforce the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940, and the Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisement) Act, 1954.
The commissioner, a senior IPS official, will lead a team consisting of officials from food safety and drugs control. Each team will have assistant commissioners, who will be a senior health department official. These officials will offer technical support to the commissionerate.
The food safety department will issue licences to those selling food items after ensuring hygiene and food safety. The Act spells out stiffer monetary penalties for violations.
The penalty for the manufacturer of adulterated food items will be in the range of Rs 1 lakh to Rs 10 lakh and the case will be adjudicated by an officer of the rank of sub-divisional magistrate.
Under the new rule, the commissionerate need not wait for years for courts to pronounce judgments in the cases they file.
If there is enough evidence, it can impose fines or cancel trade licences. At present, food inspectors double up as health and sanitary inspectors.
They pick samples and also look at sanitation, mosquito menace and contamination of water. Now, they will focus exclusively on food safety.
Instead of merely checking for adulteration, the food inspectors will check food quality and hygiene at outlets. "We are still fighting cases as old as 20 years in courts," said a senior official in the directorate of public health.
Officials from the directorate of drugs control will be brought under the new department. M Bhaskaran, former director of drugs control, thinks the merger will be a major boost to ensuring drug safety.
"Drug inspectors often skip a number of products that come as food supplements, thinking food inspectors would do the job. Food inspectors assume they come under drug inspectors. It's now time that these products, which claim miracle cures, come under the scanner," he said.
But some like former director of public health Dr S Elango feel that the merger could dilute the work done by each department.
"The new rules will regulate manufacture, sale and import of food items. It requires technical knowledge to do all this. The US FDA has people who are from the health department, not the police," he said.