Food safety a public health crisis India hasn't grasped, says Maharashtra FDA chief
Maharashtra FDA Commissioner Tukaram Mundhe says food safety is causing public health damage India has not fully recognised, with regulations going unenforced.
Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Tukaram Mundhe has said food safety has grown into a serious public health problem in India whose scale is not yet widely understood, and that the country's focus on treating illness is obscuring the role of diet in poor health.
Speaking to reporters after a talk session at Karnavati University in Ahmedabad on Saturday, the IAS officer said people tend to view health problems purely through a medical lens, without asking whether the food and beverages they consume might be contributing to them.
"The largest or the biggest issue in India regarding food safety is that it is causing public health havoc. We are not realising it. The sooner we understand and appreciate it, the better it will be for us," he said.
Laws exist, enforcement does not
Mundhe said India already has an array of laws, rules and regulations meant to guarantee food safety, but that the real difficulty lies in compliance. Apart from licensing and registration, he said, no regulation is followed in practice.
"Rules do exist, acts do exist. Except maybe licensing and registration, no regulation is followed. This is how we are compromising public health," he told reporters.
He added that the consequences of eating unsafe food are often missed because attention goes to treatment rather than to possible dietary causes.
A shifting disease burden
Mundhe pointed to how India's disease profile has changed since Independence. Communicable diseases accounted for roughly 65 to 70 per cent of the burden at that time, he said, while today a similar share comes from non-communicable diseases.
Cancer, diabetes, hypertension and cardiac ailments are on the rise, he said, with heart attacks now occurring among people in their twenties and thirties. He asserted that this has a direct correlation with what people eat.
A lack of awareness and sensitivity towards food safety and standards, he said, is another major obstacle.
A culture of safety, not just enforcement
Improving food safety, Mundhe said, will require changes in everyday consumer behaviour alongside stronger enforcement. He called for eating habits and practices guided by safety and established standards, and for a food culture built on compliance.
Greater consumer awareness, combined with adherence to existing food safety regulations, would be necessary to tackle the problem effectively, he said.