FSSAI to cancel tender issued for surveillance of products citing admin reasons

The FSSAI has decided to cancel the tender it had issued for the ‘Pan-India Surveillance of Food Products’ due to ‘administrative’ reasons. A tender cancellation notice issued by the FSSAI stated, Tender for “Pan-India Surveillance of Food Products” invited by Food Safety and Standards Authority of India, dated: 14.03.2023 is hereby cancelled due to administrative reasons. The notice was issued in March wherein the Indian food authority had planned for a nation-wide surveillance on food products during the period of 2023-24 to assess the safety and quality of food products sold in the country and to identify vulnerable hotspots where prevalence of food adulteration/ malpractices exists.

Food products including dairy products and analogues, cereals and cereal products, nuts & oil seeds, meat and meat products including poultry, fish & fish products, sweeteners including honey, fruit & vegetable products, food for special dietary use and nutraceutical products, were to be analysed for various safety parameters. The surveillance of food products was to include the food products produced, manufactured, marketed, or imported in India to assess the safety (horizontal parameters) and quality (vertical parameters).

Horizontal standards cut across various categories of foods and contain standards about contaminants, toxins, residues, packaging, labelling and so on, while vertical standards mainly include identity and compositional standards of specific food products which cover additives, microbiological requirements and so on. For this purpose, the food authority had invited applications from agencies to carry out the surveillance on its behalf. According to FSSAI, the aim was to put in place a continuous surveillance framework for better enforcement to provide safe, nutritious and quality foods to the consumers.