Indian Mandis are well known to be messy and not totally hygienic although they are the primary providers of fruits and vegetables to the majority of Indians they still are messy and unorganised and this chaotic nature might also affect peoples’ health.
To mitigate this the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) aspires to raise the quality and safety of unorganized fruits and vegetables retail markets to the level of established and organized fruits And vegetables retail stores. This initiative will upgrade the condition of local unorganized organic/non-organic fruits and vegetable retail markets across the country by integrating local vendors with organized retailers including e-commerce platforms. It will also build trust among consumers to have clean and safe fresh produce.
Under this Initiative Delhi's INA fruit and the vegetable market becomes the first market to be certified as the 'clean and fresh fruit and vegetable market in the national capital by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), said an official statement.
The FSSAI 'Clean and Fresh Fruit & Vegetable Market' aims to revolutionise fruit and vegetable markets by promoting the availability of safe and hygienic fruits and vegetables to consumers. To get the certification, a pre-audit of the market was carried out wherein the food business operators (FBO) of INA Fruit and Vegetable Market were jointly inspected by the state regulatory authority and FSSAI empanelled auditing agency, it said in a statement.
"As per the Initiative obtaining of Registration Certificate/Licence issued under FSS Act is an important requirement.
The FBO’s applied online for grant of Registration Certificate/ Licence and thereafter the Department of Food Safety, Govt. of NCT of Delhi has issued the online Registration Certificates/Licences as per office procedure. The final Audit of the Market was carried out by FSSAI.