Kanpur: Food entrepreneurs and businessmen welcomed the reformed made by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) to make food sector regulation in India simpler and more business-friendly.Atul Kumar Seth, senior provincial vice-president, Provincial Industries Association, welcomed the move and said food entrepreneurship grew rapidly in India over the past few years, with home-based food brands, cloud kitchens, small snack manufacturers and traditional food businesses emerging in large numbers. He said it was necessary to make the regulatory framework simpler and entrepreneur-friendly in keeping with the times, and the recent reforms carried out by FSSAI were being considered an important step in this direction.On the perpetual validity of licences, he said, “Now the requirement of repeated renewal of FSSAI licenses and registrations has been eliminated and this will reduce the compliance burden on small businesses and save time and resources.” He added, “There has been a major expansion in the registration limit, and the annual turnover limit for basic registration has been increased from Rs12 lakh to Rs1.5 crore. This will provide the facility of simple registration to a large number of small food businesses.”Seth said a new framework of licence categories was introduced: Rs1.5 crore: Basic Registration, Rs1.5 crore-Rs50 crore: State License, above Rs50 crore: Central License. He said the structure made regulatory processes more balanced for small and medium food businesses.Street food vendors, he said, got relief, and street food vendors registered with municipal corporations or town vending committees no longer needed separate FSSAI registration, which he said would provide relief to lakhs of small vendors. He said they also did not have to face a risk-based inspection system, and the inspection system would be operated based on risk and compliance history, which he said would reduce unnecessary inspections and increase transparency.
