The Hindu : 'Regulate flow of food products from abroad'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Aug 04, 2003

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'Regulate flow of food products from abroad'

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI Aug. 3. The Consumer Affairs Minister, Sharad Yadav, has urged the Commerce Minister, Arun Jaitley, to set up mechanisms to regulate the flow of products such as food supplements for weight loss and muscle-building from abroad.

Stating that a number of such food supplements were flooding the market from abroad without any check, Mr. Yadav, in a letter to Mr. Jaitley, said the matter needed to be looked into seriously, considering that they could be hazardous to health.

Mr. Yadav urged Mr. Jaitley to tighten the import procedure for product categories such as dry cell battery, packaged food products, electrical appliances such as iron, toaster, mixer and grinder and plastic and rubber toys on the ground that items that were being imported under these categories were ``generally of low quality''.

He urged the Commerce Ministry to issue a directive that imported food products have a minimum shelf-life of six months from the date of import and not just the date of manufacture, considering that there may be delays in their despatch, transport and offloading.

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