The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (“FSSAI”) has developed framework of national Food Safety Emergency Response (“FSER”) which outlines the multi sectorial collaboration, their roles, responsibilities and management actions during food safety emergency situation as envisaged under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006.
The Food authority has the mandate to search, collate, analyze and summarize relevant scientific and technical data particularly relating to identification of emerging risks; and introduce a rapid alert system. The framework of FSER system helps to ensure cooperation and collaboration by all interested parties and facilitates the sharing of information among responsible agencies. Such a system also enables food authorities to focus on prevention and preparedness, rather than only reacting to individual events and therefore has a greater long term sustainability.
A Food Safety Coordination Committee (“FSCC”) has been constituted for managing food safety emergencies. The responsibilities of the committee are as follows-
- Take decisions for controlling and management of food safety emergency situations based on recommendations of Food Risk and Assessment Committee.
- Planning measures for implementation of control and monitoring actions
- Monitoring and evaluation of the measures used that are fit for the situation
- Make decisions after the situation has been controlled to adjust the response level
- Advice for policy making for management and control of food safety.
The detailed framework of FSER system is placed as Annexure to the Order dated 27 October 2020, which may be accessed here.
