-B Swaminathan (cbedit@imaws.org)
India’s Food regulator Food Safety & Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) is on news allegedly for forcing Hindi language over the labels of select food products.
According to media reports, “The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India has asked the Karnataka Milk Federation to prominently label curd as ‘dahi,’ the Hindi word for it, and use the Kannada equivalent ‘mosaru‘ in brackets on packaging”.
The move had created a spark across the country mainly the Southern states. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin, who is always vocal about any form of Hindi imposition had taken the FSSAI on his twitter account. Responsing to that, the FSSAI had clarified that the food regulator had already given options for the states to use in the local language.
According to a senior officer from the FSSAI confirmed KitchenHerald that they have no intention to force Hindi on non-hindi speaking states. “This is mischievously being circulated among the social media and we had encouraged the milk producers to use the alternative words like ‘Mosaru’ or ‘Thayir’ as per the state. Nowhere we had restricted the usage of the regional languages”
March 30, PRESS RELEASE@MoHFW_INDIA pic.twitter.com/iWjwUbzCt3
— FSSAI (@fssaiindia) March 30, 2023
The officer also shared the initial draft notification, dated Jan 11, 2023, which gives options for the milk producers options to use the respective vernacular meanings for the word ‘Dahi’ (curd). “This is purely a technical aspect and there is no compulsion for any FBOs (Food Business Operators) to use Hindi word in non-hindi states”, the officer confirmed.
It has to be noted that the hashtag #stophindiimposition has been going around on social media, especially on Twitter against the circulated news on usage of the word ‘Dahi’ on the labels that contains curd.
