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Concern over EU’s rejection of seafood

KOCHI: The European Union (EU) has rejected three shrimp export consignments from Sri Lanka and one each from India and Bangladesh for the presence of ‘nitrofuran’ above the prescribed levels, according to reports.

The EU has also detected the presence of cadmium above the permitted levels in frozen and whole cleaned octopus exported from India to Italy, the report said.

The Seafood Exporters Association of India (SEAI) sources, however, maintained that the ‘faulty’ consignments would have been despatched much before the new testing and certifying scheme came into practice. The ‘nitrofuran’ was said to have been found from a consignment of headless giant freshwater prawn exported from India to Belgium during the second week of this month.

Sources in the seafood industry pointed out that the testing and certifying scheme was yet to be fully operational especially in coastal centres like Andhra Pradesh where the majority of the scampi consignments reportedly originated. It hoped that rejections from EU would come down once the process of testing and certifying took deep roots in these regions.

There were fears that the coasts in the western region were getting polluted in a major way because of increased industrial activity, including petroleum refining, ship breaking yards and cement plants.

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