NEW DELHI: The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has rapped country’s top food regulator for issuing licences to food business operators without complete documents and questioned it on the quality of testing with most state labs not being accredited by India’s top accreditation agency.
In an audit report tabled in the Parliament today the CAG said that the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India also failed to ensure that unsafe foods are not imported to the country.
The CAG said its audit found "systemic inefficiencies, delays and deficiencies in the framing of various regulations and standards, amendments to regulations in violation of the Act and the specific direction of the Supreme Court".
The CAG also said it found that "licenses were issued on the basis of incomplete documents in more than 50 per cent of cases, test checked in Audit".
A test check by audit of 5 state licensing authorities and 3 central licensing authorities found that in 3,119 out of 5,915 test checked cases licensed had been issued to FBOs (food business operators) on the basis of incomplete documents, it added.
Pulling up the regulator over quality of testing, the CAG said: "65 out of the 72 state food laboratories to which FSSAI and state food safety authorities sent food samples for testing do not possess National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL) accreditation."
Consequently, the quality of testing by these laboratories cannot be assured, the report said, adding that the labs were "ill-equipped".