Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006
No: 34 Dated: Aug, 23 2006
Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006
Act No. 34 OF 2006
An Act to consolidate the laws relating to food and to establish the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India for laying down science based standards for articles of food and to regulate their manufacture, storage, distribution, sale and import, to ensure availability of safe and wholesome food for human consumption and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.
BE it enacted by Parliament in the Fifty-seventh Year of the Republic of India as follows:–
CHAPTER I
PRELIMINARY
1. Short title, extent and commencement.–(1) This Act may be called the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006.
(2) It extends to the whole of India.
(3) It shall come into force on such date1 as the Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, appoint, and different dates may be appointed for different provisions of this Act and any reference in any such provision to the commencement of this Act shall be construed as a reference to the coming into force of that provision.
2. Declaration as to expediency of control by the Union.– It is hereby declared that it is expedient in the public interest that the Union should take under its control the food industry.
3. Definitions.–(1) In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires,–
(a) “adulterant” means any material which is or could be employed for making the food unsafe or sub-standard or mis-branded or containing extraneous matter;
(b) “advertisement” means any audio or visual publicity, representation or pronouncement made by means of any light, sound, smoke, gas, print, electronic media, internet or website and includes through any notice, circular, label, wrapper, invoice or other documents;
(c) “Chairperson” means the Chairperson of the Food Authority;
(d) “claim” means any representation which states, suggests, or implies that a food has particular qualities relating to its origin, nutritional properties, nature, processing, composition or otherwise;
(e) “Commissioner of Food Safety” means the Commissioner of Food Safety appointed under section 30;
(f) “consumer” means persons and families purchasing and receiving food in order to meet their personal needs;
(g) “contaminant” means any substance, whether or not added to food, but which is present in such food as a result of the production (including operations carried out in crop husbandry, animal husbandry or veterinary medicine), manufacture, processing, preparation, treatment, packing, packaging, transport or holding of such food or as a result of environmental contamination and does not include insect fragments, rodent hairs and other extraneous matter
(h) “Designated Officer” means the officer appointed under section 36;
(i) “extraneous matter” means any matter contained in an article of food which may be carried from the raw materials, packaging materials or process systems used for its manufacture or which is added to it, but such matter does not render such article of food unsafe;
(j) “Food” means any substance, whether processed, partially processed or unprocessed, which is intended for human consumption and includes primary food to the extent defined in clause (zk), genetically modified or engineered food or food containing such ingredients, infant food, packaged drinking water, alcoholic drink, chewing gum, and any substance, including water used into the food during its manufacture, preparation or treatment but does not include any animal feed, live animals unless they are prepared or processed for placing on the market for human consumption, plants, prior to harvesting, drugs and medicinal products, cosmetics, narcotic or psychotropic substances: Provided that the Central Government may declare, by notification in the Official Gazette, any other article as food for the purposes of this Act having regards to its use, nature, substance or quality;
(k) “food additive” means any substance not normally consumed as a food by itself or used as a typical ingredient of the food, whether or not it has nutritive value, the intentional addition of which to food for a technological (including organoleptic) purpose in the manufacture, processing, preparation, treatment, packing, packaging, transport or holding of such food results, or may be reasonably expected to result (directly or indirectly), in it or its by-products becoming a component of or otherwise affecting the characteristics of such food but does not include “contaminants” or substances added to food for maintaining or improving nutritional qualities;
(l) “Food Analyst” means an analyst appointed under section45;
(m) “Food Authority” means the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India established under section 4;
(n) “food business” means any undertaking, whether for profit or not and whether public or private, carrying out any of the activities related to any stage of manufacture, processing, packaging, storage, transportation, distribution of food, import and includes food services, catering services, sale of food or food ingredients;
(o) “food business operator” in relation to food business means a person by whom the business is carried on or owned and is responsible for ensuring the compliance of this Act, rules and regulations made thereunder;
(p) “food laboratory” means any food laboratory or institute established by the Central or a State Government or any other agency and accredited by National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories or an equivalent accreditation agency and recognised by the Food Authority under section 43;
(q) “food safety” means assurance that food is acceptable for human consumption according to its intended use;
(r) “food safety audit” means a systematic and functionally independent examination of food safety measures adopted by manufacturing units to determine whether such measures and related results meet with objectives of food safety and the claims made in that behalf;
(s) “Food Safety Management System” means the adoption Good Manufacturing Practices, Good Hygienic Practices, Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point and such other practices as may be specified by regulation, for the food business;
(t) “Food Safety Officer” means an officer appointed under section 37;
(u) “hazard” means a biological, chemical or physical agent in, or condition of, food with the potential to cause an adverse health effect;
(v) “import” means bringing into India any article of food by land, sea or air;
(w) “improvement notice” means a notice issued under section 32 of this Ac