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The Ministry of Health & Family Welfare has launched a major initiative to upgrade and modernize the food and drug laboratories all over the country. The project will be a first step in realizing the goal of safe and quality controlled food and drugs for the Indian public. This step would also help in increasing competitiveness of Indian products in the International market.
Under the project, estimated to cost about 355 crores laboratories at the State and the Central level would be strengthened, training of personnel will be undertaken and new equipments which will test harmful residues in food and drugs will be purchased.
The project will seek to harmonize the food and drug quality assurance standards and practices in India with International norms. Drug manufacturers will be encouraged to move towards good manufacturing practices and food manufacturers in priorities areas will adopt the state of the art, Hazard, Analysis, Critical, Control Point (HACCP) approach to enhance food safety. Medium and small-scale food processing operations will be properly monitored and controlled and laboratories would be in a position to test for microbiological contamination.
During the implementation of the project, about 40 new food and drug testing laboratories are to be set up all over the country besides upgrading existing facilities. The foundation stone for a new Food & Drug Administration Bhawan is to be laid by Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Dr. Anbumani Ramadoss in New Delhi tomorrow.
With the upgraded capacity and the new laboratories, it is expected that about one lakh samples of food and another one lakh samples of drugs would be tested for food safety and quality control. At present, only about 30 to 40 samples of both food and drugs are being tested annually.
The food and drug quality standards are controlled by two Central Government’s Acts viz. the Drug and Cosmetics Act and the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act. While the upgradation of both physical capacity and training of personnel will enhance and enforce standards, the Ministry also proposes to tighten the legal and penal provisions of the Drug and Cosmetics Act and provisions of the Food Adulteration Act for better regulation and enforcement of standards.
EK/MK.
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