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Six months time to implement new food labelling rules: Govt |
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 New Delhi: Government today said it has got six months time to implement the new food labelling rules in the country.
Replying to supplementaries during Question Hour in the Rajya Sabha, Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss said a notification on nutritional labelling of food articles was published in August 2006.
"But due to concerns raised by the industry in implementing different provisions of the notification ... The date of implementation was deferred and an expert committee was set up to go into its different clauses," he said.
The Minister said on the recommendation of the committee, a comprehensive notification was published on May 15, 2008 and comments from stakeholders were invited.
"After taking into account all the received comments, the final notification for nutritional labelling of food articles was published on September 19, 2008." This notification, he said, would come into effect after six months from the date of publication -- from March 19, 2009 onwards.
"This time period has been provided to meet the requirement of Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) agreement of WTO of which India is a signatory. As this notification will have an impact on international trade, a mandatory minimum time period of six months was required to be provided for implementation," Ramadoss said.
Source: PTI
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