NEW DELHI: The Government has issued a draft notification to amend the Prevention of Food Adulteration (PFA) Rules, 1955 revising the standard of creams and exempting milk products from mandatory Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) certification.

According to the draft notification issued by the Union Health Ministry, the PFA rules are being modified to revise the standard of creams to harmonise with Codex standards.

Certification for condensed milk sweetened, condensed skimmed milk sweetened, milk powder, skimmed milk powder, partly skimmed powder and partly skimmed sweetened condensed milk is being dispensed with.

The Ministry has also issued a draft notification for Prevention of Food Adulteration (Amendment) Rules seeking to reduce the maximum limit of erythrosine and sunset yellow FCF synthetic colours in sweets and beverages and to allow use of mono and diglycerides in infant formula as per Codex level.

The draft rules are published to invite public comments within 60 days from the date of the notification.

The amendment seeks to reduce the maximum limit of erythrosine/sunset yellow FCF synthetic food colours permitted in sweets from 100ppm to 50ppm and from 200ppm to 25ppm in beverages. This had been recommended by the Central Committee for Food Standards keeping in view the low ADI (Acceptable Daily Intake) of these colours as specified by the Joint Expert Committee of Food and Agriculture Organisation and the World Health Organisation on Food Additives, as well as on the intake of these foods.

The amendments allow the use of mono and diglycerides in infant formula up to a maximum level of 0.4gm/100ml of ready to serve formula as per the Codex level.

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