After Union ministry for health and family welfare issuing notice to ease import-export norms for food and pharma industries, FSSAI (Food Safety and Standards Authority of India) has issued a notice for operationalisation of Food Safety and Standards (Food Import) Regulations, 2016.
These norms will be applicable with immediate effect and no food article shall be allowed to be cleared from the Customs unless it has 60% shelf life at the time of its clearance from the Customs, as per the notice.
According to the notice, the authority, may adopt a risk-based framework and inspection process for clearance of imported food articles. FSSAI, for this purpose, shall profile the importer, custom house agents, imported products, manufacturers of imported products, country of origin, source country of the consignment, port of entry, compliance history and any other parameters deemed fit for profiling the risk associated with the commodity. The authority may also introduce Pre Arrival Document Review (PADR) for regulating the imports.
According to sources, once the ministry develops a software-based procedure to use a risk-based criteria for clearance instead of sampling from each consignment, these norms could further be reviewed for speedy clearances.
The ministry’s notice earlier stated that the new system of clearance would commence from March 1, 2016, and only those consignments which come under predefined risk parameters will be subjected to sampling based on a software programme.
Meanwhile, according to industry sources, the new notice issued by the apex food regulator has pros and cons. The new notice talks about Pre Arrival Document Review which essentially deals with the review of documents 30 days before the arrival of the shipment. This will help the importer to deal with any rectifiable defect. Further there will be no requirement of NOC (no objection certificate) for ingredients which are imported for manufacturing of an export-purpose product.
Such measures in the notice will certainly improve the timeline of the clearances. Earlier it took around two weeks for a normal clearance but with PADR scheme the time would reduce considerably and the industry thinks that clearances now could be obtained in a week’s time. This will further help in reducing the financial burden that incurs upon the importer due to overstaying of the consignment or ships at the ports, according to one industry representative.
But there are apprehensions, particularly, with respect to sampling wherein the notice talks about the discretion of the designated officer for samples to be collected for analysis. Although from March 1, industry representatives feel that situation with sampling will improve once the risk-based criteria is in place.
Further, the notice states that in respect of imported food items having shelf life of less than seven days, the authorised officer having taken an undertaking as per Schedule-11 from the importer, shall draw sample and issue Provisional NOC to the Customs, without waiting for the analysis report from lab. Upon the receipt of the analysis report from the lab, the same will be communicated to Customs along with NOC if products conform to the standard.
In case of non-conformance of the sample, the authorised officer shall immediately inform the importer/Customs brokers, to recall that consignment and submit a compliance report within 24 hours to the authorised officer and the food authority. The food authority will alert all import points to maintain vigil on imports of products manufactured by the same company or similar products imported by the same importer/Customs brokers.
However, the industry is not happy with the sweeping powers given to the designated officer or the authorised officer to revoke the licences of the importer. This may lead to corruption while there should be a mechanism for dispute redressal without going to the extreme, says another industry insider.
According to the notice, the licensing authority shall cancel the food import licence granted under the applicable regulations, if the DO/AO or any officer authorised by FSSAI have reasons to believe that there is sufficient ground to believe that the food importer has attempted to import unsafe food, prohibited food or food from prohibited sources, directly or indirectly, including re-channelling, re-packing and so on and the food importer did not comply with conditions of the licence, these regulations, or the undertaking of intended end-use.
The notice, however, talks about a 7-day window period for reconsideration of cancellation.
