During April of 2022 across News Channels there was a lot of Hue and Cry on Halal certified Products and the Halal Certification itself, reason being there is No Government of India Certified Body which looks in to this.
Like all other food items there are many countries including the Islamic Countries which export lot of items from India including Meat products as well, out of these there are some countries who follow Islam the prefer only Halal certified products and not others.
Halal slaughter, for instance, insists that the animal must be facing the Kaaba in Mecca. The slaughter must be done only by a Muslim. Kalma, or Islamic verses, must be recited during the slaughter, but does Halal certification stop only on Meat & Other Non vegetarian Products ? No there are lot of products of companies across all sections which export products which no way have any relation to that process but to sell there products in the International Markets these companies get their Halal certification done from private Parties who have opened up as Certifying Panels or Agencies.
None of these Halal certifying companies / Boards are linked to any of the Government recognised institution for Food i. e. fSSAI, but they still operate freely, during April of 2022 there were a lot of debates and discussions on News Channels and within Citizens , so we decided to find out that after such big hue & cry what has actually happened on the ground to regulate the Halal certification process.
An RTI was filed with the PMO to seek details of progress on the issue and documents such as Minutes of Meetings held with stake holders on the same, along with details of what is the amount of revenue generated from Halal certification by these private bodies and how much tax has been paid by these bodies to the Government, to our surprise the RTI was disposed off by the Public Information Officer of the PMO stating Information sought does not relate to this office.
As per RTI Ac,t if the information sought doesn’t belong to a particular department it has to be forwarded to the concerned dept and the same has to be conveyed to the applicant, but the PIO Parveen Kumar highest office of the Country, PMO, shrugged of his responsibilties by disposing off the RTI and information sought , why the PIO did this is something only the PIO can reply, either there has been no progress on the formation of a Government Panel for looking in to something, which had become a issue for Prime Time discussions of the News Channels Or was it sheer Politics which with time faded off and lost it’s steam 🤔,
The Politicians and the people raising the issue now need to think on it and reply, rest assured Citizens move on with their lives, whatever happened yesterday becomes a bygone for them today, but yes the revenue if received from Halal certification goes to the Government it will be able to do a lot more for the Country, how the Government will do it or will they be able to regulate this Private Halal certification business is something what the Government of India needs to think, rest the people of this Country are smart enough to differentiate between Politics and Policies.
Jai Hind 🇮🇳🇮🇳