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EU team 'satisfied' with fish units hygiene

Kishori Gopalkrishnan in Bombay

A two-member European Commission inspection mission, which visited the country, has indicated ``their utmost satisfaction'' after visiting several fish processing units, according to informed sources.

The European Union had imposed a ban ``in the interest of health and safety of consumers,'' after Indian fisheries products, mainly shrimps and squid, had failed a health and safety check. The safety inspection was carried out earlier by an EU team, which had held government bodies and seafood exporters equally responsible for the present state of the Rs 40-billion industry.

Industry sources maintained that the ban had resulted in the loss of a season -- calculated in the region of Rs 4-5 billion worth of foreign exchange. ``A loss that can never be covered, though exporters have since been trying to find alternative markets,'' sources added.

According to the Seafood Exporters Association of India Convener Gul Kripalani, the two man team from the EU -- an Italian and a Greek sanitary expert -- also toured Hyderabad and Bangalore last week, and finally culminated their visit in Delhi. The team are randomly selecting exporting units in the country to ensure that all the hygiene and sanitary standards prescribed by the EU for seafood products are being incorporated by these units.

When in Bombay, the duo had inspected one factory of the three which had been declared unfit by an earlier EU team and ``found it to be in perfect health,'' Kripalani maintained. He added that three units of the five in Cochin targetted by the EU earlier, were also visited.

``They have indicated to us that the Cochin units are better than even the ones in the European Union itself,'' Kripalani pointed out. The earlier EU team had visited 10 randomly selected exporting units, and found that the acceptability percentage in them was less than 20 per cent.

The team has also inspected and interviewed officials of the Export Inspection Agency of the government of India and ``found that they keep to the required standards,'' Kripalani added. From Delhi, where the team reached on November 28, it moved on to Karachi, Pakistan.

It may be recalled that an inspection of fish processing plants in India and Pakistan had found ``serious deficiencies in the structure of establishments, the hygiene quality of raw material, and in processing operations. They also showed that the level of control by the national authorities was insufficient. The latter was an important factor in the decision to opt for a total ban,'' the EC had said in a report.

The ban on fish imports from India had come at a time when Indian officials in Brussels were citing the country's fish exports as a success story, sources said. India's fisheries exports to the EU have almost doubled from the about Rs 7 billion per annum ($200 million) three years ago.

India exports mainly prawns, shrimps, squids and cuttlefish to Europe. Serious flaws were found in processing of shrimps and squids. However, the processing of prawns and cuttlefish was found to be mostly satisfactory, sources said.

Sources added that fisheries is one of the few sectors to have received an increased allocation. The total outlay for fisheries development over the next five years has been proposed at Rs 12 billion.

In 1995-96, India emerged as the world's second largest producer of inland fish and the seventh largest producer of all fish, including marine catch. Exports of marine products rose a whopping 800 per cent since 1984-85 from Rs 3.84 billion to Rs 35 billion in 1995-96. Of this, 67 per cent came from shrimp farming (aquaculture).