Assess the adequacy of State-level food safety enforcement in India and suggest reforms.

The Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 gives day-to-day enforcement to State Commissioners of Food Safety and Designated Officers [1]. The law itself is sound. However, States lack the staff, labs and records to enforce it well, so enforcement is uneven and often fails when challenged in court.

Adequacy: strengths of the framework

• Graded enforcement ladder: an improvement notice under Section 32 gives at least 14 days to comply. Suspension follows, and cancellation comes only after a show-cause notice [1].
• Public-health override: a licence can be suspended "forthwith", provided reasons are recorded in writing [1].
• In-built remedy: an appeal lies to the Commissioner of Food Safety [1].
• Responsive action: the Maharashtra FDA acted on a food poisoning complaint in Pune. It found labelling and staff-hygiene lapses and suspended the shop's licence. In October 2026 the Supreme Court set aside the Bombay HC's ₹5 lakh compensation order against the FDA [2].

Inadequacy: gaps on the ground

• Weak licensing records: the CAG found licences issued on incomplete documents in over 50% of the cases it checked [3][4].
• Unreliable labs: 65 of 72 State food labs lacked NABL accreditation, and many lacked equipment to test for pesticides and heavy metals [3]. Their test results are therefore easy to challenge in court.
• Staff shortage: recruitment regulations had not been framed, and contractual staff were doing routine statutory work [3].
• Reactive enforcement: States had not surveyed the food businesses in their areas [3], so action often begins only after a complaint, as in Pune [2].
• Litigation exposure: the HC compensation order, though overturned, shows how exposed enforcement actions are to court challenge [2].

Reforms

• Standard reasons format for every immediate suspension: what was found, the risk to public health, and why an improvement notice would not be enough [1].
• Fill vacancies and notify recruitment rules, as the CAG recommended [3].
• Make NABL accreditation mandatory and upgrade lab equipment so that test evidence holds up in court [3].
• Risk-based inspection based on surveys of food businesses, with high-risk items such as dairy and sweets checked first [3].
• Time-bound appeals before the Commissioner, so a wrongly suspended shop reopens quickly without going to court [1].

Overall, the law gives States adequate powers, but they lack the capacity to use them well. Implementing the CAG's 2017 recommendations [4] would protect both consumers and livelihoods and advance SDG 3 (good health) and the Article 47 duty to improve public health.