Lucknow: The Uttar Pradesh food safety and drug administration (FSDA) department has clarified that the halal ban is only meant for companies selling packaged products and not for exporters or hotels and restaurants selling halal meat.
FSDA commissioner Anita Singh told ThePrint that the ban is only for packaged products and not the halal meat being served in hotels and restaurants. Export products have been already exempted from the ban, she added.
Singh made this statement to clear confusion of hoteliers and restaurateurs after the Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government on Saturday evening banned the production, storage, distribution and sale of food items with “halal certification” barring exports in the state.
In its Saturday notification, the FSDA had said that “halal certification is a parallel arrangement that creates a situation of doubt on the subject of quality of a food item” and is “absolutely against the basic intention of the Food Safety and Standards Act”.
The UP government had said that it received information that products such as dairy items, sugar, bakery products, peppermint oil, salty ready-to-eat beverages, and edible oils are being labelled with halal certification. Some medicines, medical devices, and cosmetic products also have a halal certificate on their packaging or labelling, it added.
There are 3,000 to 4,000 restaurants registered with the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) in Uttar Pradesh, National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) Noida chapter head Varun Khera told ThePrint.
“…many more are operating in the unorganised sector. 780 restaurants registered with the FSSAI are in Noida alone. Most of these have a halal certification because Muslim customers do ask for it and they want to attract customers and make profit,” he added.
Renu Thapliyal, secretary general, Hotels and Restaurants Association of Northern India (HRANI), said that while around 2,000 hotels are registered across north India, the association has not maintained any data of hotels which may have halal certification.
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STF to begin probe
Meanwhile, the Uttar Pradesh Police Special Task Force (STF) is set to initiate a probe into the allegation of a BJP youth wing leader that companies providing halal certification may be passing on “inappropriate benefits to anti-social and anti-national elements”.
The FIR was lodged Friday against three Muslim outfits and a Chennai-based company based as well as unidentified parties on the complaint of Shailendra Sharma, who identifies himself as the outgoing vice-president of the Awadh province of Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) and the former general secretary of BJYM, Lucknow city on social media.
The police lodged the FIR against Halal India Private Limited, Chennai, Jamiat Ulama Hind Halal Trust (JUHHT), Delhi, Halal Council of India, Mumbai, Jamiat Ulama Maharashtra along with “unknown production companies and their owners and managers,” “all people resorting to conspiracy against the nation,” “notified terror outfits and other people funding anti-national activities and organisations” and “other people conspiring riots on wide scale by playing with public sentiments.”
“The companies are issuing halal certificates to different companies for monetary benefits on the basis of forged affidavits, resorting to fraud with common public,” the FIR said, alleging that they are attempting to influence a particular religious community in inappropriate way for production of such products and are attempting to reduce the production of those companies which have not taken the certificate from them.
“In this way, a criminal conspiracy is underway against a particular community and its products. So much so that halal certification is being given even for vegetarian products like cosmetics including oil, soap, toothpaste and honey, etc even as vegetarian products don’t require such certification and unrestrained publicity is being done amid a particular group that it shouldn’t use a product which don’t have the certification being provided by their company,” Sharma alleged.
According to an article of The Sunday Guardian published in May, the halal economy is worth around $100 billion in India, and is growing rapidly.
There are at least 92 companies and exporters selling food and related-products that have a halal certification in Uttar Pradesh, as per the UP government. Another 600 entities, including those dealing in cosmetic and personal care items, have such certification. FSDA commissioner Anita Singh, however, told ThePrint that there may be more.
ThePrint spoke to Jamiat Ulama Maharashtra organisation secretary Mufti Huzaifa Qasmi, who said halal certification is provided to companies requesting for it.
“A Muslim can consume only that meat which is prepared after butchering an animal in the Islamic way. When we export products, the importers ask if the process was followed. So, we give halal certification. Similarly, there are items like oil, etc that Muslims can’t consume if they include traces of certain animals. Importers ask for assurance that the oil doesn’t contain such traces. Even big restaurants ask for such certification because they want to assure customers. Checks are done at their premises, they pay fees and certification is issued. We don’t understand why the government is interfering,” he told ThePrint.
Jamiat Ulama-I-Hind Halal Trust secretary Niaz Ahmed Farooqui told ThePrint that while the government has started raiding stores, the organisation will legally challenge the allegations against them.
Farooqui said that around 90 UP companies which have been given halal certification by the trust were mostly exporters. “We don’t provide certification to hotels and restaurants in UP since there is no demand. In other cities, where there is demand, we are providing certificates for food,” he added.
But, in a 2019 research paper, Yusuf Hassan, assistant professor of Instruction at the Muma College of Business, University of South Florida and Anirban Sibnath Sengupta of IIM-Indore, noted that the JUHHT offers halal certification under three categories — abattoirs, processed foods and restaurants — and provides services to 60 out of the 70 biggest slaughterhouses, more than 400 food-processing companies and over 100 restaurants.
ThePrint has a copy of a halal certificate issued by the JUHHT to one such restaurant in Delhi.
The JUHHT charges Rs 60,000 on an Indian company for every new registration for three years, Rs 25,000 for every new registration for one-year and Rs 20,000 for halal logo printing along with consignment certification charges and auditor’s expense. It also provides certification to overseas companies.
(Edited by Tony Rai)