KOCHI: With facilities for examining various molecular biology-based parameters in food authenticity testing, the new molecular biology laboratory of Export Inspection Agency - Kochi (EIA-Kochi) was inaugurated here on Wednesday. The state-of-the-art of laboratory with the administrative and technical control of the Export Inspection Council of India (EIC) under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry will have provisions which include Basmati rice authenticity testing, meat and meat products species identification, detection of shrimp viruses/disease, species/ pathogen identification to facilitate export, import and domestic trade related to food and feed.
In his inaugural address, EIC chairman and Joint Secretary in the Commerce Ministry Santosh Kumar Sarangi spoke on EIAs and EIC, the regulatory body for exports under the Union Government and its decades of diversified experience in quality control and inspection, especially on notified commodities including their testing as per international standards/importing countries' standards.