National Council of Applied Economic Research
The IEPF Unit, NCAER in collaboration with The State Capacity Initiative at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR), the Forum of Indian Regulators (FOIR), and the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs (IICA) organised this talk in the Know Your Regulator Series. The talk featured Ms Rita Teaotia, Chairperson of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) in conversation with Dr Mekhala Krishnamurty, Senior Fellow, CPR and Director of the State Capacity Initiative and Dr. Abha Yadav, Associate Professor, Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs and Director of the Forum of Indian Regulators (FOIR) Centre at IICA. Dr KP Krishnan, IEPF Chair Professor in Regulatory Economics, NCAER delivered the introductory remarks.
Food is regulated through a variety of activities that include setting food safety standards, developing guidelines, mandating disclosure, devising certification standards, testing of products, monitoring and supervision, and the imposition of sanctions and penalties. It also includes public education about food safety amongst the general public and to people and enterprises in the business of producing and selling food. The Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 provides the legal framework for food regulation in India. Following this law, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) was established in 2008.Our Know Your Regulator (KYR) Briefing Note: FSSAI provides introductory information about the design and structure of food regulation in India.
This talk series is jointly organised by the State Capacity Initiative at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR), the National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER), the Forum of Indian Regulators (FOIR) and the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs (IICA). In this series, we will talk to the people entrusted with the task of regulating Indian markets and various parts and aspects of the economy. These are the chairpersons and members of India’s regulatory agencies. In our conversations, we will seek to explore the public nature of regulatory activity. In other words, why should the work of regulatory agencies be of interest to people, as producers, consumers, professionals, service providers, and as citizens? What are the public goals of regulation? In what ways does the work of regulation involve having to make a balance, or to make trade-offs, or to amicably resolve competing or even conflicting claims of public and private interest?
Regulatory agencies are a relatively recent innovation of the Indian state, set up to address the evolving needs of the Indian economy in the decades since the 1990s (although with some notable older instances). We are interested in exploring the institutional form of the regulatory agencies, their features, norms and values, and their frameworks of decision-making and rationality. We are also interested in the functional domain and the everyday administration of the regulatory agencies, their staffing, procedures, information systems and operational modalities. Regulatory agencies are envisaged as a state agency that can respond to complex and changing situations, both at the level of policy recommendation and in case-specific ruling. In the conception of regulatory agencies, this was thought of as a challenge that would be addressed through specialisation, expertise and in the design of their power and functions. However, each regulatory agency is also unique, in terms of the way in which its regulatory mandate is designed and the nature of the challenges that it is set up to address. In this talk series, we will seek to explore the regulatory debates (both broad and sectoral) that animate the world of regulation, and how it relates to the rest of us.