The Hindu Business Line : Organic products: Quality Council seeks to be nodal agency

The Quality Council of India (QCI) is pitching for being a nodal agency to implement the National Programme for Organic Production (NPOP), the secretariat of which is with the Agriculture and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) that has been operating both as a certifying and promotional agency for this activity.

Sources in the Government told Business Line here that the National Accreditation Board for Certification Bodies (NABCB) under the QCI is the responsible agency for providing national accreditation system for conformity assessment bodies (CABs) such as certification bodies (CBs) and inspection bodies (IBs) in the country for products and processes across the spectrum.

Expertise

However, APEDA has been working in the organic agriculture area ever since the advent of the NPOP early this decade as both an accreditation body and a promotional wing for export of organic produce from this country. It has also developed expertise in ensuring organic farm produce such as tea, coffee, spices, honey and medicinal plants exported from India remained up to the standards expected at the international level. Such organic farm produce exports earned Rs 330 crore in the year 2006-07 and they are cranking up a growth of 50 per cent rate this year to surpass Rs 500 crore export receipts from organic produce exports.

accreditation

The sources said the QCI may be proficient in establishing an accreditation structure in the country and facilitating upgradation of equipment and techniques related to quality, besides representing India in the International Accreditation Forum and the Pacific Accreditation Cooperation (PAC). But it may not have the requisite expertise in assessing the technical standards or application of such standards in organic farm produce.

However, the NABCB Adviser, Mr Anil Jauhri, said QCI with its expertise in product and process accreditation area is more qualified to draw upon its pool of talent, both national and global to offer a single-window clearance mechanism for certification and accreditation of such organic produce export.

He said accreditation has gained a paramount role in global trade in view of provision of recognition of conformity assessment systems of trading partners by each member nation under both technical barriers to trade as well as sanitary and phyto sanitary standards agreements. This is all the more so since the regulatory bodies in the world over rely on national accreditation in recognising conformity assessment bodies for the purpose of regulation.

The sources said that the APEDA’s former Chairman, Mr K.S. Money, has proposed to hive off the agency’s activities on organic produce export even as the QCI has made a proposal to the Commerce Ministry for assuming this activity in its portfolio, both within the country and abroad. However, the sources said while APEDA does recognise the outstanding role of QCI in general systems audit, the council lacks technical expertise to assess organic farm produce which has been built up by APEDA over the years. That is why APEDA has asked QCI to co-opt its nominee in the NPOP, for which QCI has not yet responded, the sources said.

Trade policy analysts, however, said APEDA’s role as a certifying and promotional body, besides being a regulator for organic farm produce export has raised pertinent questions from overseas sources.

They cited an evaluation study of European Commission on Indian organic Agriculture Inspection which has highlighted the performance deficiencies of the APEDA on this score way back in 2004.

With Export Inspection Council, another outfit functioning within the Commerce Ministry also joining the bandwagon for staking its claim to undertake NPOP, the National Steering Committee which meets quite often might have to take a call soon on which agency is really qualified to promote and certify India’s organic food produce, both nationally and globally, the sources added.

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Organic products: Quality Council seeks to be nodal agency