FSSAI has brought out the 3rd State Food Safety Index for the year 2020-21, indexing the performance of each state according to human resource, compliance, food testing, training and consumer empowerment. This index on food safety of the Food and Safety Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) was released on the completion of 15 years of the formation of the regulatory body.
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 the general public at large. The first State Food Safety Index for the year 2018-19 was announced on the first-ever World Food Safety Day on 7thJune 2019.
This year in the index ranking of larger states, it is seen that Gujarat, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu surpassed their food safety performance rankings in the top three respectively. Uttar Pradesh was in 5th position while Bihar’s performance was the least.
In the smaller states, Goa, Meghalaya, and Manipur outperformed others, while Mizoram’s food safety index was the minimum.
While in the Union territories, Jammu and Kashmir topped the food safety index, followed by Andaman and Nicobar Island, Delhi in 3rd place, and Chandigarh in 4th place.
As per the food safety index for 2020-21, Odisha and Himachal Pradesh, among the largest states, showed consistent improvement in food safety rankings. Odisha’s rank improved to 4th place in 2020-21 from 13 in 2018-19, while that of Himachal Pradesh’s rank improved to 6th place from 10th position in the said period.
In smaller states, there was consistent improvement in Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh.
According to FSSAI, a healthy society can be built if citizens have access to quality and a balanced diet, for which best efforts are required to be put in by the concerned stakeholders.
Along with government efforts to enforce quality standards, there is a big role for the industry and consumers in achieving the goal of 100 per cent food safety. The point is that consumers need to be aware of sub-standard foods, and hence there is a need to create awareness about this in a country with wide diversity.