The apex food regulator is planning to give licences to food business operators (FBOs) within one hour of submission of application. This is being planned on the lines of unio government’s decision to disburse loans to those belonging to MSME sector within 59 minutes of application.

This path-breaking decision was arrived at after the matter was discussed during the Central Advisory Committee (CAC)  meeting held here on Friday. The decision was made in order to push the ease of doing business project further, it was learnt.

While speaking to FnB News, Pawan Agarwal, CEO, FSSAI, informed that the time was brought down to just one hour in order to align with the government’s wish to improve the ease of doing business. Currently it takes 15 days to generate the licence for FBOs after submission of the required documents along with the application.

Agarwal explained that since licensing does not require pre-inspection by the food safety authority, hence issuance of licence should not be a time-consuming factor, as long as the documentation was complete.

He stated, “Licensing does not require any prior inspections and if the documents are fully completed, licences can be generated immediately. It does not take much time, and the only thing was that documents required to be full.”

FSSAI has made a plan for this project and it will be implemented in 10 districts spread across the country over a period of time. The 10 districts include Nagpur, Sangli and Dhule from Maharashtra, North Goa from Goa, Visakhapatnam and East Godavari from Andhra Pradesh, Idukki from Kerala, Somnath from Gujarat, Pradeep (Jagatsinghpur dist) from Odisha and Kangra from Himachal Pradesh.

Meanwhile, FSSAI, in consultation with the concerned states, is conducting special drive in these districts to check the FBOs compliance with licensing and registration rules. However, the CAC was of the view that to bring in discipline among FBOs, it is imperative to have special drives in all districts of the country.

Further, FSSAI in July 2018, had already made request to states/UTs to carry out enforcement drive targeting non-licensed FBOs. In the past also, FSSAI has repeatedly requested states/UTs to carry out the survey of unlicensed/unregistered FBOs.

The CAC has said in its agenda note that states/UTs were requested to act in the direction of ease of doing business and may conduct special camps in which licences/registration can be awarded in similar time frame. Further, states/UTs may direct designated officers and registering authorities to identify the area to conduct licensing/registration camps in their respective areas, wher the maximum benefit from the camps can be achieved.