The FSSAI, under National Annual Surveillance Plan (NASP), has been conducting nationwide monthly surveillance drives on various food commodities to assess the compliance of food commodities with the applicable provisions of FSS Regulations.
“If any non-compliances are detected during surveillance, enforcement sampling is subsequently carried out on the non-compliant samples.
In cases, where the enforcement samples are found non-conforming, regulatory actions are initiated against the defaulting Food Business Operators (FBOs) as per the provisions of FSS Act 2006, Rules and Regulations made thereunder,” reads the statement by the Health Ministry.
Meanwhile, it is learnt that the Department of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare (DA&FW) has funded a project “Monitoring of Pesticide Residues at National Level” (MPRNL) to monitor the pesticide residues in various food commodities.
Under the MPRNL project, samples of food commodities like vegetables, fruits, spices, cereals, pulses, herbs, fish/marine, meat and egg, tea and milk are collected from different parts of the country by 35 participating laboratories and analysed by National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL) accredited testing laboratories for the possible presence of pesticide residues.
