Food Safety and Standards Authority of India, on 18 October 2022, released a direction to ease trading and business, decided to extend the provisional NOC facility to the FBOs with Authorised Economic Operators (AEOs) certification. As a result, the FBOs who import their food consignments and have AEOs from Customs should make a declaration and submit an undertaking form to the concerned Authorised Officers.
For compliance with this order, all Authorised FSSAI Officers are now directed to conduct visual inspections of imported food consignments, and after satisfactory inspection, they shall draw samples and issue the Provisional No Objection Certificate (P-NOC) without waiting for the laboratory analysis report. However, the Authorised Officers will provide the final No Objection Certificate after receiving the analysis report from the laboratory only if the products comply with the FSSAI standards. These directions will remain valid until further notice.
The notification encloses an Annexure consisting of an undertaking form mentioning – a declaration regarding the issue of provisional NOC for imported food consignments by Authorised Economic Operators. FBOs should consider printing this form on their letterhead and correctly filling in all the necessary information prescribed in the form.