US rejection of Indian goods ?? what a shame!

US rejection of Indian goods ?? what a shame!
It's a real shame that several food shipments from the country have been sent back by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). And this is not the first instance that they have been rejected. In a span of six months, 1,763 food shipments have been rejected with products ranging from spices and seeds to shrimps and drugs.

Earlier too, India's export image took a dent when the EU had rejected several consignments amid alleged reports of dead insects in cashew nuts, salmonella in minced dehydrated white onions which took everyone by surprise.

This is not funny at all. India should pull up its socks to enforce necessary quality standards for upholding the brand image of the country on the export front. It is high time that the government enforced quality norms at all levels to ensure that the consignments are not rejected. The quality enforcing authorities and export houses should be made accountable.

On one hand we are trying to push food exports as a thrust sector, and on the other, we have no effective standards in place. Forget about exports, shockingly, India today doesn't even have an effective mechanism to check compliance to food standards for domestic requirements.

I feel the ongoing rejections is not only a setback to the nation's inspection process, it also brings to fore a number of questions on the standards followed by the country.

The formation of a strong and independent regulatory body that can oversee the implementation of the laws and information dissemination amongst exporters about sanitary measures have to be undertaken on a war-footing. Moreover, the inspecting bodies should be well equipped to understand the finer points of conformity to global standards.

I fear that if such rejections continue, it will impact the Indian economy that has a large dependence on exports. Overhauling of the regulatory framework is the only way out of this impending crisis.


Bikky Khosla
CEO
Tradeindia.com