Upgrading Food Testing Laboratories: Minister informs Parliament

The Minister of State (Health and Family Welfare), Sh Faggan Singh Kulaste through a written reply in the Rajya Sabha informed about the upgradations of Food Testing Laboratories.

At present, there are 219 Food Testing Laboratories [72 labs functioning under the State/Union Territories; 131 National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL) accredited private laboratories and 16 Referral Laboratories notified by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI)] in the country under the Food Safety and Standards (FSS) Act, 2006, Rules and Regulations made there under. State/Union Territory-wise details of these laboratories with NABL accreditation, are at Annexure.

Many of state food testing laboratories lack equipment/infrastructure and the technical manpower required for conducting the tests (Details are given below):

State-wise details of 219 Food Testing Laboratories in the country under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 and Rules/ Regulation, 2011 made there under

The Referral Food Laboratories work as appellate laboratories for the purpose of analysis of appeal samples of food lifted by the Food Safety Officers of the State/UTs and local bodies and the imported food samples

A Scheme, inter alia, for strengthening of State Food Testing labs (at least one in each state with a provision of 2 labs in large states) and support for Mobile Food labs (one mobile lab for every 20 district with a provision of at least one mobile lab in each state) has been rolled out by FSSAI with an outlay of Rs. 481.95 Crore.

Under the scheme, the State Food Testing Laboratories are under the obligation to attain the NABL Accreditation i.e. International Standards Organization Accreditation (ISO/IEC 17025:2005).