Govt greenlights food regulatory reforms, street vendors to be 'deemed registered' under FSSAI

New Delhi: Easing the lives of street food vendors, the Union Health Ministry on Friday approved regulatory reforms, permitting them to work without a FSSAI license if they are registered with the municipal authorities or town vending committees.

The street food vendors registered with municipal corporations or town vending committees under the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014 will be considered as “deemed registered” under the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India.

The move would benefit more than 10 lakh such vendors by eliminating the requirement for multiple registrations across departments, officials said, noting that the reform would “significantly” reduce compliance burden and enable the vendors to focus on their livelihoods, hygiene and business operations.

The ministry also approved “perpetual validity” of FSSAI registrations and licences, reducing the paperwork for food business operators.

“This would be valid for all registrations and licenses. It is for the food business operators of all sizes,” sources told DH. The reforms will come into effect from April 1.

Currently, the FSSAI licenses and registrations need to be renewed and the periodicity of such renewals varies between one to five years.

Under the revised framework, registrations and licences will have perpetual validity, eliminating the need for repeated renewals.

This, the food regulator claims, will substantially reduce compliance costs, paperwork and the need for repeated interaction with licensing authorities for food business operators, while improving continuity of operations.

The reform would enable regulatory resources to focus more effectively towards enforcement, monitoring and capacity-building activities, the FSSAI said.

As a part of the reform, the turnover threshold for registration has been increased from Rs 12 lakhs to Rs 1.5 crore.

The state licensing would for businesses up to an annual turnover of Rs 50 crores while central licensing applicable beyond this limit.

Such a rationalisation, according to the regulator , is intended to empower and strengthen the role of state authorities by enabling them to focus more effectively on oversight, facilitation and enforcement of food safety regulations within their jurisdictions.

For food business operators, particularly micro and small enterprises, the measure will result in simpler compliance requirements, reduced paperwork and fees, elimination of pre-inspection, and instant registration, thereby improving ease of operations.

In the last three years, the number of FSSAI inspections are increasing steadily from over 39,000 checks in 2022-23 to close to 42,000 inspections in 2023-24 and nearly 52,700 in 2024-25.

A new dynamic risk-based inspection framework has been put in place to incentivise compliant food business operators and reduce repetitive inspections.