NEW DELHI: As the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) races against a Supreme Court deadline to finalize its recommendations for mandatory front-of-pack nutrition warning labels on packaged foods, a think tank working on nutrition on Thursday said they have designed a framework which will ensure the final policy is based on scientific evidence and public interest, not on commercial influence.
The framework, termed the Weightage Scale for Stakeholder Comments, was submitted to FSSAI by Nutrition Advocacy in Public Interest (NAPI), a think tank working on evidence-based nutrition policy.
The scale provides a clear methodology for the FSSAI's and the expert committee to evaluate inputs by prioritizing their source and evidence-base, rather than their volume. NAPI's comprehensive policy analysis submitted to FSSAI earlier had detailed the urgent need for a strong, warning-label-based system as well as prohibition of advertisements of High Fat/Sugar/Salt (HFSS)/ Ultra processed food products.
It is based on global evidence and India's own health crisis.
NAPI’s intervention comes amid growing concerns that the landmark policy aimed at combating India's epidemic of obesity and diabetes could be diluted by intense lobbying from the food and beverage industry, said NAPi’s convenor, Dr Arun Gupta.
The Supreme Court has directed FSSAI to finalize the regulations within three months, ending mid-October. As per the SC orders, FSSAI has to analyse over 14,000 public comments on front-of-pack food labels (FOPL) to finalise its recommendations.
"The number 14,000 is a distraction; the key is to categorize, not count," said Dr. Gupta, pediatrician, and former member of the PM's Council on India's Nutrition Challenges.
"The FSSAI is at a crossroads. It can either be remembered as the regulator that empowered millions of Indians to make well-informed choices, or the one that capitulated to food corporations. This 'Weightage Scale' provides a simple, fair, and transparent roadmap for them to choose public health. We urge the FSSAI and its ‘Expert Committee’ to adopt this framework to ensure their analysis is defensible and based on evidence, not the number of comments.”
The proposed Weightage Scale assigns a value from 0 to 10 to different stakeholders.
They said that maximum weight (9-10/10) must be given to independent scientific evidence from institutions like Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), and national and global public health bodies or science publications. This should be the gold standard.
Also, they said higher weight (8/10) must be given to consumer rights organisations, World Health Organisation (WHO) and UNICEF who provide evidence and what ordinary people actually understand.
The public health experts said that low weightage( 3-4) may be given to individuals and MSMEs. They said that MSMEs having vested interest should not dictate what the content of policy or regulation should be but may provide implementation challenges for consideration.
Lastly they said, minimal weight (0-2/10) should be given to industry associations, lobby groups or food industry representatives.
“Their submissions, while important for understanding logistical challenges, represent a clear vested commercial interest in suggesting the content of a regulation that can undermine policy’s health goals,” they said.
"This scale allows the committee to cut through the noise and focus on the gold-standard evidence that should form the foundation of this critical public health measure. The world is watching to see if Indian regulation can prioritize people over profits,” the public health experts said.
Urging the FSSAI to adopt the framework they have submitted to ensure a transparent process, they said, they should publish a report justifying its final decision based on evidence and ethics.