Food Safety: India's crackdown must continue, but follow the science and improve systems

India’s renewed crackdown on food safety violations especially in Maharashtra is welcome, but its lasting value will depend on the scientific and regulatory infrastructure and system behind it. The real challenge is to build a food-safety system guided by scientific evidence, strong surveillance, modern testing capacity and policies that protect both public health and vulnerable consumers.Recent enforcement action in Maharashtra illustrates the dilemma. After people fell ill following consumption of Malai Pedas in Pune, the food outlet responsible was closed after its sample was declared unsafe. Yet after demonstrating 98% compliance during re-inspection, its licence was restored by the Bombay High Court. The episode highlights the need for regulators to act firmly while ensuring that enforcement remains proportionate, transparent and evidence-based.Inspections have uncovered disturbing but familiar problems: cockroaches and rodents, fungal growth, expired ingredients, poor temperature control, inadequate storage and cold-chain failures. These are not merely issues of cleanliness.Flies, cockroaches and rodents can mechanically transmit pathogens to food, while improper handling and temperature control provide ideal conditions for organisms such as Bacillus cereus and Staphylococcus aureus. These organisms cause serious infections of the gut and body. The scale of foodborne disease is substantial. Analysis of national surveillance data recorded 2,688 foodborne outbreaks, more than 153,000 illnesses and 572 deaths between 2009 and 2018. Grains and beans were associated with the largest proportion of outbreaks.However, these figures grossly understate the true burden because disease surveillance in India relies chiefly on government-facility reporting, while much routine care, including for mild, self-limiting infections such as diarrhoea, happens in private clinics that largely fall outside the system. Investigations of outbreaks in Hyderabad and Kerala have demonstrated how contaminated food handlers and infected handlers can transmit S. aureus and hepatitis A. Another recent review of published outbreaks across India also shows that unsafe water infrastructure is a major contributor, reminding us that food safety cannot be separated from safe drinking water, hand washing and sanitation.Chemical contamination may be even more dangerous. Although chemically contaminated food accounted for only 3.4% of reported outbreaks in the national dataset, it was associated with 70% of recorded deaths.Lead, mercury and organophosphorus compounds were among the reported contaminants. India also has a long history of epidemic dropsy caused by adulteration of mustard oil with Argemone oil which causes liver and kidney failure, jaundice and death.Substandard, adulterated and synthetic milk presents another troubling example of gross neglect of food safety. A national survey conducted by FSSAI found 68% of samples failed to conform with standards, with almost half showing substandard fat or solids-not-fat content, particularly among loose and rural milk supplies.Yet, despite the apparent scale of the problem, there is still inadequate published evidence directly linking synthetic milk consumption to specific disease patterns. Such evidence should be urgently generated rather than allowing a major public-health concern to remain poorly quantified.Perhaps the clearest gap is that food regulation is still looking at yesterday’s contaminants. PFAS, microplastics and nano-plastics, antibiotic and hormonal by-products, antimicrobial-resistance genes and veterinary drug residues are increasingly recognised internationally as food-safety concerns. Yet enforceable limits and adequate testing capacity remain incomplete for several of these hazards in India.For microplastics, FSSAI has taken a first, methodological step to develop detection protocols, not yet a regulatory limit. For PFAS, a draft 2025 rule bans it only in food packaging, leaving non-stick cookware untouched; AMR is, by contrast, better addressed, with a dedicated five-year National Action Plan and a livestock-fisheries surveillance network already in place, though its actual reach to keep resistant bacteria out of our food supply remains to be tested.Even where standards exist, such as limits for veterinary drug residues, domestic capacity to monitor compliance remains limited.That such lapses turn up even in old, reputed establishments and multi-crore oil and dairy businesses points to a wider weakness in India's public health system, of which food safety is only one part, this article does not even touch the FDA's parallel mandate over drug quality. India therefore needs raids matched with preventive food safety systems.Regulators and public health departments need stronger surveillance and outbreak investigation, better laboratory networks, modern contaminant testing and clearer risk-based standards. Enforcement must be tough against deliberate adulteration and serious negligence, but it should also help small businesses understand and achieve compliance.Such a system could largely fund itself through food-vendor licence fees rather than straining state budgets, provided it also invests in public education and food-handler training and licencing, not inspection alone. A round of raids brings short-term gains; lasting improvement will need sustained, well-funded, scientifically grounded monitoring over years, not months.The lesson is simple: inspectors can enforce only what the law defines and laboratories can detect. India has demonstrated that effective standards are possible, as seen with aflatoxin regulation.The next step is to make emerging contaminants and neglected foodborne hazards a national scientific priority. Otherwise, the most visible crackdown may simply be testing yesterday’s problems while tomorrow’s hazards remain invisible.(views are personal to authors) - Ends