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 Mr Malik, a 1983 batch IAS officer of Haryana cadre, was appointed CEO of the food safety watchdog FSSAI in September last year and took charge on October 1. He has been made the Additional Secretary in an organisation called the NITI Aayog from today. He has been appointed in the newly created post by cancelling the appointment of Keshni Anand Arora, his batch mate from the same cadre, according to a report in ndtv.
It was during his tenure that samples of Maggi noodle were taken to various labs which found that it contained added Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) and lead in excess of the permissible limit. FSSAI had on June 5 banned the instant snack that has had a level of adverse global reaction and protest unprecedented for the Indian food regulator, says the report.
Nestle was forced to withdraw the total stocks from the market and destroy them, resulting in a loss of hundreds of millions of rupees and the brand took an unprecedented beating despite being in the country for decades. Ironically, most other countries also followed suit and re-ordered testing of the samples which were later found to be within the safety limits in countries like Singapore and the US with extremely strict food safety rules.
Since then the food safety regulator has been facing criticism from both the government as well as industry circles on the way the issue was handled, testing methodologies as well as the interpretation of the law. International food processing companies and the domestic importers say that the food regulator's attitude has been detrimental to ease of doing business and Make in India initiatives. According to Hindu Business Line , the buzz around imminent changes at the top in FSSAI, after the Maggi controversy, was gaining ground and somewhat expected though Mr. Malik seems to have been shocked and surprised by the move and laments that he was kept in the dark about the appointment.
It was also during his tenure that multiple wine shipments of Pernod Ricard were rejected and blocked by the authority on the ground that it contained tartaric acid which was not in the list of allowed additives, despite several attempts by the importer to explain that this was a universal practice allowing additive in the wine making. Indian producers have also acknowledged using it to add to the acidity and crispiness of wine under some circumstances. The company which is the biggest importer of its popular label Jacobs Creek wines in India was forced to knock at the doors of the High Court in Mumbai which gave them relief in a remarkably short time.
Pernod Ricard was not the only importer that suffered financial losses and opportunity loss. FSSAI has been considered the biggest scourge for the Indian imported wine segment which suffered an overall reduction of imports by 10-15% over the previous year (2013-14) whereas the importers had been extremely optimistic to increase the sales by around 20%.
Many of the smaller importers suffered losses due to the rejected shipments because of technical reasons, especially the labelling issues which were rejected inconsistently, arbitrarily and summarily without recourse. A few of them had to close down because they could not accept or bear financially the idiosyncrasies. Whether Mr Malik addressed the issues at the top is a moot point but many importers informed delWine that when they went to meet the concerned officials, they were brushed aside with disdain and told to go to the court if they liked rather than give any advice on what was acceptable as the correct label.
Malik has been shifted out at a time when the FSSAI is in the process of overhauling regulations and has less than a dozen drafts notifications - from new toxins and contaminants standards to food recall procedure up on its website. The other peeve point of the industry against FSSAI has been the product approval advisory, which was recently quashed by the Supreme Court, adds the Hindu Report.
FSSAI has recently started drawing up lists and started putting up information on the complete procedures of product approval on the FSSAI website. In a letter to the stakeholders on the issue written in May, Malik had said: “As a regulator, the FSSAI is committed to support the ‘ease of doing business’ but without ignoring its mandate of ensuring safe food for the millions of this country.” This was a few days before the Maggi episode exploded.
However, most importers concede that after the Maggi controversy and the Pernod Ricard case that FSSAI lost in the High Court (for details please visit Victory for Common Sense in PRFJC vs. FSSAI) there had been a visual change in the attitude of the watchdog’s staff who have stopped bothering about minor variations now ( the credit for which might go to Mr. Malik) and their business is limping to normalcy. |