ENFORCEMENT OF FRUIT PRODUCTS ORDER

ONLINE LICENSING AND MONITORING LAUNCHED

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The Ministry of Food Processing Industries has developed an online licensing and monitoring system to cover all activities associated with the enforcement and administration of Fruit Products Order (FPO)-1955. This will help quality production, packaging, inspection as well as monitoring of production and exports of fruits and vegetable products. The system designed and developed by National Informatics Centre (NIC) was inaugurated by Shri N.T.Shanmugam, Minister of State for Food Processing Industries at a function here today.

The main objectives of the system are to provide online information regarding various FPO licenses, their details and status of different activities relating to them to the prospective and existing licensees. The system would also enable building up and maintenance of upto date data base of all FPO lincenses, their production and follow up of activities at operational level.

Fruit Products Order-1955 was promulgated under Section 3 of Essential Commodities Act which aims at regulating sanitary and hygienic conditions. In the existing working environment, the FPO activities like new licensing, renewals, changes, FPO inspections and follow up actions, are managed manually. The status of FPO activities such as inspection details, delay in issuance of licenses and compilation of production data have to be ascertained from multiple files and at times the information is incomplete. All this results in inadequate and delayed flow of information to decision making levels.