Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Tukaram Mundhe, who has made headlines for his massive crackdown on food businesses for flouting norms, has responded to criticism over his show-cause notices to Bollywood actors Shah Rukh Kha, Ajay Devgn and Tiger Shroff for participating as brand endorsers for Vimal, allegedly a tobacco product.
“The notices which have been sent are about surrogate advertising. Now, there’s a rule to that. Whatever you’re promoting has to be truthful. This act hasn’t come from me.
As per 2018 Advertising and Claims regulation, it casts equal responsibility on the advertiser or promoter. It’s a 2018 regulation in the Food sector, being implemented since 2019,” Mundhe said in an interview with Prakhar Gupta on his YouTube channel. Mundhe’s crackdown has led the suspension of food permits of four Pizza Hut outlet, among others, in recent weeks, and has also targeted cricket clubs, hotels and well-known restaurants in over 3,000 raids since he took over as Maharashtra’s food safety chief in May, according to Reuters. The report also cited data which indicated that each year since 2020, Indian food inspectors have examined over 100,000 food samples and found roughly 20% to be unsafe, substandard or lacking proper labels, government data shows. Nearly 8,000 food business licenses have been cancelled in the last three years.
