India has spent decades worrying about whether there is enough food. It built buffer stocks, expanded procurement, raised farm output and created a public distribution system of extraordinary reach. The harder question now concerns what people are actually eating. Milk can be diluted, spices adulterated, edible oil substituted and vegetables contaminated. A policy that secures calories but cannot assure consumers that food is safe has left an important part of the job unfinished.
The World Health Organisation estimates that unsafe food causes hundreds of millions of illnesses worldwide every year. The burden is especially harsh on poorer households. They are less able to pay a premium for trusted brands, test what they buy or absorb the cost of illness. Food adulteration is therefore also an income issue. The household with the least bargaining power in the market carries the greatest risk.
READ | Food subsidy squeeze calls for procurement reform
The structure of agricultural marketing adds another difficulty. Farmers frequently have to sell perishable produce soon after harvest. Consumers, meanwhile, pay far more at retail. Several hands intervene between the two. Some perform useful functions such as transport, storage and processing. Others profit from information gaps and weak traceability. The farmer does not necessarily receive more when the consumer pays more, nor does the higher retail price buy an assurance of quality.
Unsafe food pays when enforcement is weak
Adulteration survives because there is money in it. Dilution, substitution and false labelling can lower costs. An honest producer who spends more to meet safety standards can then find himself competing with someone who does not. This is a straightforward enforcement failure. If detection is infrequent and punishment slow, cheating becomes a commercial calculation.
India does have a food safety law. FSSAI sets standards, licenses businesses and oversees regulation under the Food Safety and Standards Act. Much of the actual policing, however, falls to State food safety departments. Their capacity varies widely. Officers have to monitor markets ranging from dairies and sweet shops to restaurants, warehouses and food-processing units. Laboratory access is uneven. Prosecution can take time.
Data placed before Parliament in March 2026 show that more than 5.18 lakh food samples were analysed over three years. More than 88,000 cases were decided with penalties, over 3,600 convictions were secured and more than 1,100 licences were cancelled. Those numbers show considerable regulatory activity. They also have to be seen against the size of India’s food market and the number of transactions taking place every day.
READ | India’s food safety gap: Why enforcement alone cannot fix it
The familiar festival-season raids are useful, but they also reveal how enforcement works. Adulterated sweets, milk products and edible oils draw attention around periods of heavy consumption. Traders will change behaviour only when they expect scrutiny throughout the year. A raid makes news. A credible probability of inspection changes business practice.
Food safety starts before the retail counter
A serious policy against adulteration has to follow food from production onwards. Polluted irrigation water can contaminate vegetables before harvest. Poor storage can damage grain. Excess pesticide residues can enter the food chain on the farm. Packaging at the end of this process cannot repair what went wrong earlier.
That places responsibility beyond FSSAI and State food safety departments. Agriculture departments and mandi boards affect production and marketing practices. Panchayats and municipal bodies regulate many of the places where food is sold. At present, each institution can deal with the part of the chain under its jurisdiction while no agency is fully answerable for what reaches the consumer.
A National Food Integrity Mission could provide that accountability. It should be judged by outcomes that can be measured, including the frequency of testing in high-risk categories and action against repeat offenders. The case for Prime Ministerial backing is administrative rather than ceremonial. Food safety cuts across departments and levels of government, and such programmes tend to stall when no institution can compel the others to act.
Animal products require the same approach. Unsafe feed and veterinary drug residues can enter milk, eggs, meat or fish. Food regulation cannot begin only after these products have reached a processor or retailer. Surveillance has to cover the points at which contaminants can enter the human food chain.
READ | Grain surplus shows why food procurement policy must change
Make adulteration a bad business
District enforcement will determine whether any national mission works. Food safety officers need timely access to laboratories. Confirmed violations need to move quickly into prosecution or administrative action. Increasing the number of samples has limited value if test reports arrive late or repeat offenders continue trading.
Inspection should also become less dependent on complaints. Some foods and markets carry a greater history or risk of adulteration and should be sampled accordingly. Publishing district-wise results would make enforcement easier to judge. Consumers could see which products repeatedly fail tests. State governments could see where their enforcement machinery is barely functioning.
Penalties have to affect the economics of the offence. A fine that can be absorbed as part of the cost of doing business will not deter deliberate adulteration. Cases involving harmful chemicals or spurious substitutes should bring seizure and prosecution, with licence cancellation where warranted. The sanction should be severe enough to outweigh the gain from cheating.
There is also a farm-income argument for better standards. Farmer producer organisations and cooperatives can help growers test, grade, process and package produce. A farmer who can establish quality has a better basis for claiming a higher share of the final price. Consumers, in turn, get something more useful than a brand promise.
Compliant food businesses have much the same interest. They pay for testing, proper ingredients and labelling. Weak enforcement subsidises competitors who evade those costs. Better regulation would therefore favour firms that comply with the law rather than penalise business as such.
Consumers cannot be expected to police the food market, but they can add to the information available to regulators. Labels should be intelligible. Complaint systems should be simple enough to use. Local bodies and market associations can help identify recurring violations, provided complaints produce visible action.
India’s food policy was shaped in an era when scarcity was the overriding fear. That policy succeeded well enough for the question to change. The country now has to worry about whether food available in abundance is also fit to eat. A litre of milk or a packet of spice should not require an act of faith from the buyer. That is a reasonable expectation of a functioning food market.
READ | Can digital food currency address PDS design flaws
Suresh Kumar is a retired Indian Administrative Service officer with nearly four decades of distinguished leadership in governance, public policy formulation, administrative reform, agriculture transformation, water governance, and institutional restructuring. Widely respected as one of Punjab’s most influential policy architects, he served as Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister (2003–07) and subsequently as Additional Chief Secretary, Punjab and Chief Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister (2017–21). Educated at the London School of Economics, with extensive global exposure through the World Bank, IMF Institute for Capacity Development, UNDP, UNICEF, UNESCO, ILO, Columbia University SIPA, TERI, IIM Bangalore, and LBSNAA, he blends field-level governance depth with global development perspectives. He is also a prolific public policy commentator whose work has shaped national discourse on federalism, sustainability, agricultural policy, governance reform, institutions, and public administration.