Daijiworld Media Network - Mumbai
Mumbai, Sep 6: Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Tukaram Mundhe has clarified that the department’s new year-round festival food-safety directive is aimed at preventing food adulteration and ensuring safe food at public gatherings, and does not seek to regulate religious or cultural celebrations.
Mundhe said the directive applies uniformly to festivals and gatherings across communities, including weddings, bhandaras, Eid, Christmas and New Year’s Eve events, and does not impose any new restrictions on religious or cultural activities.
“We are not regulating festivals; we are ensuring that food served at festivals — just as in weddings, bhandaras, Eid, Christmas, New Year’s Eve events and other gatherings — is safe and compliant with a law that has existed since 2011,” Mundhe told PTI.
The clarification comes after the FDA introduced a year-round **‘Festival Enforcement Calendar’** to systematically monitor food safety during festivals, following months of intensified action against food adulteration.
“There appears to be some misunderstanding and apprehension regarding the standing order issued for food-safety arrangements during festivals and large public gatherings,” Mundhe said.
“The order does not regulate festivals. It regulates food safety,” he said.
Mundhe said the legal framework governing food safety, including registration and licensing of Food Business Operators (FBOs), has been in place since 2011 and has been operational for several years.
The latest order neither creates a new law nor introduces a new licensing system or additional restrictions on festivals, he said.
According to Mundhe, festival-related food-safety directions were earlier issued separately as individual festivals approached. The latest order instead establishes a standing framework covering the entire year and applies to festivals and large gatherings across communities and religions.
The framework is intended to ensure that food-safety officers, vendors, caterers, FBOs and event organisers understand their respective roles and responsibilities.
“This reduces ambiguity, prevents arbitrary interpretation and ensures consistent implementation of the law,” the senior IAS officer said.
Mundhe said the latest standard operating procedure (SOP) was both religion-neutral and festival-neutral and did not discriminate between communities or festivals.
He clarified that the order does not prohibit bhandaras, prasad or community food distribution, nor does it interfere with Ganapati or other religious festivals, rituals or traditions.
It also does not prevent communities from organising festivals or regulate the manner in which people celebrate, he said.
“No religious or cultural activity is being prohibited by this order,” Mundhe said.
He said the SOP was intended only to ensure implementation of the existing food-safety framework across all communities, festivals and food-service activities.
“It is a uniform, year-round SOP for implementing the existing food-safety framework, applicable without discrimination to all communities, all festivals and all food-service activities,” Mundhe said.
“The objective is not to restrict celebration but to prevent illness. Let festivals be celebrated with faith, joy and tradition and let the food served during the festivities be safe,” he added.