Harmonising roles: Joint working group to check food quality

Will synchronise working relationship of provincial food departments and PSQCA

ISLAMABAD: A joint working group will be established among the provincial food departments and Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority (PSQCA) to ensure quality of food products in the country.

The decision was taken in a meeting chaired by Science and Technology Minister Rana Tanveer Hussain at the ministry on Tuesday.

The meeting was held after the issue of jurisdiction and use of authority surfaced between PSQCA Act 1996 and Punjab Foods Authority (PFA) Act 2011.

For instance, food processing is the mandate of PSQCA while quality checking of wheat comes under the authority of the Punjab government but once the wheat is grinded, it comes under the former’s jurisdiction.

Similarly, PFA checks quality of mangoes but when its juice is extracted or its shape is changed it falls under PSQCA. However, there were incidents where both authorities would come face to face and the matter would heat up.

The minister said working in isolation was disastrous and there should be mutual cooperation among food authorities and the PSQCA, said a press release. “The purpose of food authorities and the PSQCA is to provide neat, clean and standardised food, hence, their working relations should also be of the same nature,” the minister was quoted saying.

It was decided that the joint working group of law and standardisation should be established under the chairmanship of the science and technology secretary, comprising provincial food secretaries as members and representatives from law and inter-provincial coordination divisions.

The purpose of formulating the working group is to remove both technical and non-technical hurdles facing the provincial food authorities and PSQCA, and to bring harmony among their working relationship.

To ensure quality of food related products it was also decided that market surveillance committees, consisting of officials of PFA and PSQCA, would be established at district level in Punjab. The purpose would be to collect, check and test samples of various foods products from open market randomly.

It was also decided that to avoid further overlapping, the secretary will write to provincial chief secretaries and minutes of the meeting will be distributed to provinces and law ministry for legal verdict.

PSQCA Directo- General Dr Barkat Saeed Memon, PFA Director-General Sajid Chohan, and seniors officials of the ministry were present at the meeting.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 29^th, 2015.