1,122 Food Poisoning Deaths in 2024 Expose Gaps in India's Food Safety Enforcement

Two suspected food poisoning incidents this month—one at a private school in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, and another at a popular eatery in Bhiwandi, Maharashtra, affecting over 200 people—have once again highlighted the need for stricter implementation of the Food Safety and Standards (FSS) Act.

According to the latest Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India report, a total of 1,122 people died due to food poisoning in India in 2024. These avoidable deaths must be viewed in the context of enforcement lapses revealed by the government's own State Food Safety Index for 2023-24. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) measures this index for all States and Union Territories based on five parameters: human resources and institutional data, compliance, food testing infrastructure and surveillance, training and capacity building, and consumer empowerment.

While a strong correlation could not be established, the index showed that States with high numbers of food poisoning cases also tended to have low or moderate scores. Nearly three-fourths of all States and Union Territories scored less than 50 out of a possible 100. Jharkhand, where over 130 persons died of food poisoning in 2024, scored 26.5. Uttar Pradesh, which reported over 200 casualties in 2024, scored 44.25.

The FSS Act mandates periodic inspections and analysis of food samples from all registered Food Business Operators (FBOs). An amendment to the Act notified this month makes the frequency of inspections based on a dynamic risk-based assessment of all FBOs, depending on the type of establishment, past records, and other factors. While the amended provisions are yet to be implemented, FSSAI data for 2024-25 showed that inspections and food samples analysed by various States were much lower than the number of registered FBOs. For instance, only 20,877 samples were lifted in Maharashtra, which has over 1.8 lakh registered or active FBO licences, according to data available with the Food Safety Compliance System.

Effective implementation largely depends on authorities at the central and State levels. While the FSSAI ensures overall coordination, State Food Safety Authorities are primarily responsible for enforcement at the field level. However, these institutions suffer from staff vacancies. The FSSAI, with a sanctioned strength of 822 officers, saw vacancies increase from about 30% to almost 40% in the last five years. Further, data submitted in response to a Rajya Sabha question in March 2025 showed that only 2,997 of the sanctioned positions of 4,208 Food Safety Officers (FSO) across all States and Union Territories have been filled as of the third quarter of FY 2025-26.

The World Health Organization's Foodborne Disease Estimates (2026) estimated that unsafe food causes around 866 million illnesses and 1.5 million deaths annually. It also stated that 57.1 million Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) were lost in 2021 due to foodborne diseases, with 30% of this burden borne by children under 5 years. Though the total foodborne disease burden has declined since 2000, a country-wise analysis of the rate of years of life lost due to foodborne diseases showed that India ranked 15th, alongside several low-income African nations.