In news– June 7 is observed as World Food Safety Day every year.
About World Food Safety Day (WFSD)
- It aims to throw some light on the food-borne diseases and contamination of water and food.
- WHO and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations jointly facilitate the observance of WFSD, in collaboration with Member States and other relevant organisations.
- It was announced as an annual celebration by the United Nations General Assembly on June 7, 2018.
- After this, the global health body decided to continue to celebrate it in a big manner so that awareness can be spread across the world.
- WFSD reinforces the call to strengthen the commitment to scale up food safety made by the Addis Ababa Conference and the Geneva Forum in 2019 under the umbrella of “The Future of Food Safety”.
- The theme for 2022 is “Safer food, better health” which aims to highlight the role of safe, nutritional food in ensuring human health and well-being.
- In 2021, the day was celebrated under the theme “Safe food today for a healthy tomorrow.”
State Food Safety Index (SFSI)-
- On the occasion of World Food Safety Day, the Union Health Minister has released the 4th State Food Safety Index to measure the performance of States across five parameters of food safety.
- SFSI was started from 2018-19 with the aim of creating a competitive and positive change in the food safety ecosystem in the country.
- The index will help in providing safe and nutritious food to our citizens.
- The Index reflects the overall performance of the States/ UTs on various parameters of food safety.
- These food safety parameters are broadly classified under following 5 significant factors assigned with separate weightage of marks, they are:
- Human Resources and Institutional Data (with 20% weightage).
- Compliance (with 30% weightage).
- Food Testing- Infrastructure and Surveillance (with 20% weightage).
- Training and Capacity Building (with 10% weightage).
- Consumer Empowerment (with 20% weightage).
- To motivate Smart Cities to develop and execute a plan that supports a healthy, safe and sustainable food environment through adoption of various Eat Right India initiatives, the Health Minister also felicitated 11 winning smart cities of the EatSmart Cities Challenge, launched by FSSAI last year in association with the Smart Cities Mission under the aegis of Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA).
Ranking of States/UTs:
- Among the Large States: Tamil Nadu is the top-ranking state, followed by Gujarat and Maharashtra.
- Among the Small States: Goa is the top-ranking state followed by Manipur and Sikkim.
- Among UTs: Jammu & Kashmir is the top-ranking UT, followed by Delhi and Chandigarh.
- States/UTs with significant improvement in ranking during last year :
- Uttarakhand in Large State Category.
- Tripura in Small States Category.
- Ladakh in the category of UTs.
Source: Hindustan Times
