Strict laws to prevent food adulteration | Fusion - WeRIndia

Members of Rajya Sabha are focusing on the increasing amount of food adulteration cases. They said that these incidents should be taken seriously. Several members including from BJP have asked the government to make tougher laws to control the adulteration of food.

The issue was raised by Naresh Agrawal (SP). He talked about the dangerous adulteration in food products including essential items such as milk, fruits, and vegetables. He called it a serious issue which is causing several health issues like liver and heart diseases and even cancer.

When talking about the issue, he said that the current laws are not strong enough to control this problem. He cited examples of plastic rice that is being imported from China and mixed with normal rice to be sold in the market, and of synthetic milk which is being sold in the national capital itself.

Following Agarwal’s concerns, there were several MPs including BJP members who supported them. Lending his support was also the Deputy Chairman P J Kurien, who said that there was an increase in cancer cases and food adulteration is the reason for it.

Kurien said that this issue is very serious and it should be reported to the concerned minister so that a new and tougher legislation could be formed.

A Parliamentary Standing Committee in its report on Consumer Protection Bill 2015 tabled in Parliament last month has suggested giving more legal teeth to advertising watchdog ASCI to stop misleading advertisements. Severe penalties, imprisonment and cancellation of licenses to those who commit food adulteration was also proposed.

The Food Safety Standards Authority of India in December last year released a report on public laboratories which said that every fifth sample of food items tested by public food safety labs were found to have been adulterated and misbranded. UP is in the first position with maximum number of food adulteration cases.

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