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A Bi-Monthly Newspaper Devoted to Milk, Milk-Products & Allied Sectors
dairy
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For Milk Adulteration
Benagl, providing life term as the maximum punishment for adulteration. At present, most states prescribe a punishment of six months jail term and a fine. The bench added “it is also desirable that Union of India revisits the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 to revise the punishment for adulteration making it more deterrent in cases where the adulterant can have an adverse impact on health”. he Supreme Court has expressed serious concern favouring life imprisonment over the rampant adulteration of milk in the country. Court urging Central Government to amend the Indian Penal Code (IPC) to make the punishment deterrent for offenders also criticised the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) for its failure to take effective measures to check adulteration.
Court was hearing a PIL filed by Swamy Achyutanand Tirth and others, highlighting the sale of adulterated and synthetic milk in different parts of the country.
A bench of Chief Justice of India T S Thakur and Justice R Banumathi maintained that it was high time that the Centre revisit the IPC as well as the Food Safety and Standards Act to make sure stringent penalties are provided under the law.
“For curbing milk adulteration, an appropriate state level committee headed by the Chief Secretary or the Secretary of Dairy Department and District level Committee headed by the concerned District Collector shall be constituted as is done in the state of Maharashtra to take the review of the work done to curb the milk adulteration in the district and in the state by the authorities,” directed the court.
It preferred the amendments made to Section 272 (adulteration of food and drinks) in the IPC by states such as Uttar Pradesh, Odisha and West
A Group Publication of Advance Info Media & Events
Vol. 01, Issue 04, August - September, 2016
SC Favours Life Imprisionment
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Times
The court issued a slew of directives, asking the Centre and state governments to prosecute the offenders apart from putting in place a strong regime for checking adulteration of food and milk.
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Dairy industry in fear of
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he Indian dairy industry demanded to keep the dairy sector outside the ambit of goods and services tax (GST) bill, passed in Rajya Sabha. Key players of Indian dairy feared that the enactment of GST bills will affect the dairy sector subjected to about 18 percent of GST which would make it economically unviable at the time when talks for doubling the farmer’s income through dairy also are advancing. “As most of the milk and milk products barring few product like butter, ice cream etc. are either tax free or attract VAT of 5-6% at present in most of the states, any GST rate above this will only makes the products more costly”, said Harsev Singh, CEO Reliance Dairy. While addressing a seminar organised by industry body PHD Chamber of Commerce Animal Husbandry Secretary Devendra Chaudhary did not comment on the industry demand to keep to the products outside the GST ambit. However he said taxation on dairy products could be rationalised via value-added activities of the milk produced as the industry pitches for excise duty cuts. Talking on the tax rate Prabhat Dairy M.D Vivek
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GST
CERTIFIED ISO 22000 NirmalANsaid that 18% tax is COMPANY surely too high. Considering that 65% of the Dairy market is unorganized, the rates have to be practically looked at. Most of the dairy products don’t have Excise duty, so a lesser slab should be made applicable to ensure the products remain reasonably priced for consumers.
“The rate of 18% on milk products will definitely have impact on the prices of the some of the essential g oods. We expect the rates to be lower than the st andard rate prescribed”, said Rajiv Mitra of Govind Milk. Speaking on the subject Kuldeep Sharma, Chief Thinking Of ficer Suruchi Consultants said that GST is that it should be waived off for all dairy skill and training related activities or must come under lowest available slot not more than 5 %. He said for milk, curd, lassi , Mawa and buttermilk GST must be exempted while for Paneer, cheese, butter,flavored milk, fermented milks , ice creams, SMP, sweets and ghee It must be at first level minimum slab. "The seminar recommended to the government that indigenous dairy sector be a part and parcel of the agri activities, its excise levy be rationalised and the sector should be kept outside purview of GST,” speakers said. (Read full story on pg no 18-19)
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