Food safety and standards authority of India (FSSAI) has prepared a base working paper on strategy and action plan for ensuring safety of milk and milk products. The base work is prepared by an expert group on milk and milk products.

The basework covers 3 goals which include assessment of food legislation at national level, preparation of a country profile and preparation and implementation of national food safety programme, and evaluation of food safety activities.

he expert team has analysed few problems related to food safety/quality in export and import of M&MPs. In exports the team observed that the standards based on As-Low-As-Reasonably-Achievable (ALARA) principles are more stringent than Codex, e.g. EU ML on aflatoxin M1 in milk, also that the importing countries demand, infrastructural measures to meet requirements, e.g. use of milking machine to maintain hygiene, rapid alert system not based on a systematic approach, thus generating unfounded fears about the exported products. On the import front the team realised the scope for the emerging food safety threats: e.g. melamine in dairy foods from China, presence of non-permitted food additives in imported foods and inappropriate / inadequate labelling on the packages of imported foods.

India produced 1,048 lakh tonnes of milk in 07-08 and in the same year India's total per capita availability of milk was 252 g / per day. The estimated demand in 2021-22 is around 1800 lakh tonnes.

The paper further highlights the aspects needed to be addressed under the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act and Rules, like the standards for residues of chemical contaminants are not all based on risk assessment, there are no standard for veterinary drugs in milk, laboratory infrastructure facilities need strengthening and that the enforcement of product quality and safety standards are inadequate.

Similarly the MMPO (Milk and Milk Products Order) needs to be reviewed - the hygiene and the requirements to be strengthened.

The expert group has stressed on public education and participation in ensuring food safety which is not adequate, industry efforts to educate consumers on food safety limited to label information on appropriate use of products and the need to devise mechanism for proper, adequate and continual education of consumer on food safety - such as through media.

The action required by the FSSAI will be to finalise food safety policy and finalise a plan of action for safety and quality of M&MP as outlined in the report, to implement the plan, food safety and quality legislation to be regularly evaluated and revised, to check if necessary and action needed to review standards as outlined in 'Actions required.'

The group has underlined the plan for FSSAI to develop a system, to coordinate food control activities with the State Food Safety Authorities effectively, to regularly monitor and audit system performance (including performance of State Food Safety Authorities) and to participate in Codex meetings effectively.