Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) whose quotidian water utilization is less than 10 cubic meters shall be spared from the requirement of No Objection Certificate (NOC) of the groundwater authority. In this matter, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India has released an addendum to the Guidelines on need of ‘No Objection Certificate (NOC)’ from the Central Ground Water Authority (CGWA) for grant, renewal and product modification of FSSAI License.
The addendum states that the Micro and Small Enterprises pumping less than ‘10 cum ground water per day’ are exempted from getting ‘No Objection Certificate’ issued for ground water withdrawal.
“Consequently, the FBOs which come under Micro and Small Enterprise category and the groundwater extraction for the project is below 10 cum/day (-10 KLD) are not liable to obtain NOC either from the CGWA or from the respective State Ground Water Authority for grant/renewal and product modification of FSSAI License,” asserts the FSSAI notification.
Nevertheless, such FBOs shall be required to produce the Self-Declaration in the suggested format when they apply for the grant, renewal or modification of FSSAI State as well as Central License.
And all the FBOs qualifying the exemption criteria can avail it across the nation.
The notice further says- “The mentioned exemptions shall be available to all the eligible FBOs across the nation including for the States UTS that have set up their respective groundwater extraction guidelines / legislations and have their own State Ground Water Authorities.”
FSSAI states that the addendum is felicitous with immediate effect and has instructed the food safety commissioners and licensing authorities that all the unsettled applications for acquiring new renewal modification of FSSAI licenses may be assessed and processed accordingly by the relevant Licensing Authorities.
This regulation came as a counter measure after some news of mismanagement of water resources came into being.
