Indian spices have not been banned by countries like Singapore and Hong Kong, the Ministry of Commerce informed Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.

Specific batches of a few spice mixtures exported from India were recalled by the food safety authorities in Hong Kong and Singapore due to the presence of ethylene oxide (EtO) above permissible limits, Minister of State for Health Anupriya Patel said in a written reply.

As part of its import surveillance, the Singapore Food Agency placed the consignments of spices from the associated brands under Hold-and-Test regime for a period of one month.

The Spices Board, under the administrative control of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, has taken various steps to meet the varying EtO limits of the importing country. They include mandatory pre-shipment testing of spices being exported to these destinations and issuance of comprehensive guidelines to be followed by exporters to prevent possible EtO contamination at all stages such as procurement of raw materials, packing, storage and transportation, Patel said.

Further, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) is fully committed to ensure the availability of safe food products to the consumers across the country, she stated.

Towards this, the FSSAI through states, UTs and its regional offices conducts regular surveillance, monitoring, inspection and random sampling of various food products including dairy products, spices and fortified rice to check compliance with the quality and safety parameters and other requirements as laid down under Food Safety and Standards (FSS) Act, 2006, and regulations made thereunder, she said.

In cases of non-compliance to the statutory requirements, penal action is initiated against the defaulting food business operators (FBOs) according to the provisions laid down under the FSS Act.

Further, the FSSAI has conducted pan-India surveillance for milk and milk products in 2011, 2016, 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2023. The report of milk surveillance conducted in 2018, 2020 and 2022 is available in public domain at www. fssai.gov.in/cms/national-surveys.php, Patel said.

The FSSAI has also asked the states and UTs to deploy 'Food Safety on Wheels' for screening and rapid testing of milk and milk products. It has conducted pan India surveillance on spices in 2022, she stated.

The FSSAI has laid down standards for fortified rice, rice flour for preparation of fortified rice kernel and vitamin-mineral premix for fortified rice kernel to achieve effective implementation of the national level rice fortification programme and to provide quality and safe fortified rice to the consumers, the minister said.

Also, it has launched a dedicated portal, FoRTRACE (Fortified Rice Traceability) for traceability purpose of rice fortification starting from manufacturing of premix to fortified rice production, Patel said in the written reply.

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