FSSAI to treat women & transgender FBOs under separate category in FoSCoS

The Indian Food Authority – FSSAI has decided to treat ‘women and transgender’ food business operators under a separate category window in the FoSCoS portal and asked its licensing authorities to distinguish such applications from the general submissions.

According to the FSSAI, this was decided to ‘bridge the gender gap’ and fostering equal opportunities to such persons.

Inoshi Sharma, Executive Director, Compliance Strategies, FSSAI, said, “FSSAI has created a provision in the online Food Safety Compliance System (FoSCoS) portal to identify the persons of ‘special category’ for faster processing of licence/registration applications with an aim of bridging the gender gap and fostering equal opportunities by facilitating the participation of the women and transgender entrepreneurs in food business sector.”

This provision enables licensing and registration authorities to process such ‘special category’ application on 1:1 ratio with regular application.

The direction issued by the FSSAI reads, “From now onwards, a system has been implemented that allows licensing and registering authorities to view applications separately, distinguishing between general and special categories. Accordingly, licensing and registering authorities are directed to process the applications from both categories in balanced manner, maintaining a one-to-one ratio, until there are no pending application in either category.”

The identification of women and transgender entrepreneurs shall be conducted at the time of submission of applications of licence or registration on the basis of authentication through Aadhar/Pan. Also, the FSSAI would further devise methods for the digital identification of individuals with special abilities.

Courtesy : Fnb news

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