Activist groups see red over FSSAI’s new guidelines of working with private sector

The body said that the move of proposed partnership with the food industry in the regulatory planning is a fundamental and institutional conflict of interest.
For representational purposes
For representational purposes

NEW DELHI: The Alliance against Conflict of Interest — a group of organisations and individuals that includes doctors, lawyers, women and children's health groups and activists — has strongly criticised draft guidelines on “working with the private sector” by the country’s apex food safety regulator. “It sounds more like facilitating the work of the private sector to interfere in the public policy-making rather than protecting the health and well-being of the consumers,” said the alliance in a statement. 

The body said that the move of a proposed partnership with the food industry in regulatory planning is a fundamental and institutional conflict of interest. FSSAI had issued the guidelines earlier for feedback.

The alliance has, however, stressed that the food industry has “no business to be part of implementing nutrition action.”

“Going by this principle food industry should not be sitting on any table that talks about how nutrition/food/diet action be implemented,” it said criticising the FSSAI for encouraging a culture of “self-compliance” by food manufacturers, the alliance said that evidence so far shows that the strategy has not worked in India. 

Citing a study from 2014, which showed that overall nutritional quality of foods marketed to children had remained in the poorest category and thus posed high risk to contributing to obesity, the alliance said the lack of improvement in the nutritional quality of food marketed to kids is likely a result of the weak nutritional standards for defining healthy food.

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