Nagaland ranks sixth in FSSAI’s State Food Safety Index

Our Correspondent

Kohima, Sep. 21 (EMN): Nagaland ranked sixth in the small states category among eight states in the third State Food Safety Index 2020-21 of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), scoring 38 points.

Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Mansukh Mandaviya released the report on Monday.

The index measures the performance of states and union territories on five significant parameters of food safety.

Nagaland scored five points in ‘human resource and institutional data’, 12 points in ‘compliance’, 11 in ‘food testing-infrastructure and surveillance,’ three in ‘training and capacity building’ and seven points in the ‘consumer empowerment’.

Every year, FSSAI releases the State Food Safety Index based on the overall performance of the states/ UTs in the previous financial year to create a positive competitive environment across the states/ UTs to meet the objectives of the Food Safety and Standards Act to provide safe food to public at large.

In the human resources and institutional data (with 20% weightage), the objective is to check availability of strong culture and ecosystem of enforcement commensurate with the size and population of the state/UT as well as participation of other departments and stakeholders in food safety activity at state and district levels. This parameter measures the availability of human resources like number of food safety officers, designated officers, facility of adjudications and appellate tribunals, functioning of state/ district-level steering committees, pendency of cases and their monitoring and participation in Central Advisory Committee meetings of the Food Authority, FSSAI stated in its report.

The compliance (with 30% weightage) is the most important parameter and measures overall coverage of food businesses in licensing and registration commensurate with size and population of the state/UTs, special drives and camps organised, yearly increase, promptness and effectiveness in issue of state licenses/ registrations and monitoring of expired licenses. This parameter considers the inspections carried out for high-risk food businesses, mode of inspections used and the number of samples lifted for testing. Promptness in attending to the consumer grievances and availability of help desk and web portals is also examined under this parameter.

Food testing-infrastructure and surveillance (with 20% weightage) measures availability of adequate testing infrastructure with trained manpower in the states/ UTs for testing food samples. The states/ UTs with NABL accredited labs and adequate manpower in the labs scores more in this parameter.

The availability and effective utilisation of mobile food testing labs and registration and utilisation of InFoLNet (Indian Food Laboratories Network) are also examined under this parameter, it added.

Training and capacity building (with 10% weightage) focuses on training and capacity building of regulatory staff and laboratory personnel. Also the workshops held with training partners, availability of training calendar and number of trainings held under FoSTaC (Food Safety Training and Certification) is examined in addition to the availability of trained food safety supervisors in food businesses across the state/UT, it informed.

Consumer empowerment (with 20% weightage) measures the performance of States/ UTs in various consumer empowering initiatives of FSSAI like participation in food fortification, eat right campus, BHOG (Blissful Hygienic Offering to God), hygiene rating of restaurants, RUCO (Repurpose Used Cooking Oil), clean street food hubs, etc. Further, action taken for coverage of food fortification in open market, government safety net programmes and availability of fortified products in all districts are taken into consideration. State initiated activities for creating consumer awareness are also considered.

Further, based on the fact that similar states should be compared, FSSAI for generation of SFSI Index has classified states/ UTs into three categories (large states, small states and union territories). This will ensure comparability among similar entities, it said.

The assessment and evaluation of each category has been done by separate teams comprising outside experts for food testing and food and nutrition professionals in addition to FSSAI officials. The teams examined the details received and interacted with states/UTs through web meetings.

Meanwhile, Mandaviya observed that food is an essential component of health in a holistic sense. “Balanced nutrition is an integral part of Health,” he stated.

The Union minister also felicitated nine leading states/UTs — Gujarat (top ranking), Kerala and Tamil Nadu among large states; Goa, Meghalaya and Manipur in the smaller states category and among UTs were Jammu and Kashmir, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and New Delhi.