NEW DELHI: "The Food and Drugs Capacity Building Project will be the first stage of a long-run programme supporting India's vision of ensuring safe and high quality food and drugs for the Indian public," the World Bank said in a statement Friday. The credit from the International Development Association (IDA), the World Bank's concessionary lending arm, carries no interest and has a 35-year maturity. The project is to be implemented by the health and family welfare ministry through its existing directorates for foods and drugs quality control. Said the World Bank: "The project will benefit society at large, but in particular the poor, who will gain from lower morbidity and premature mortality as a result of increased safety and quality of foods and drugs available." India has made considerable progress in improving the health status of its population in the last 50 years, but disparities between regions and between the poor and non-poor continue to widen. "The poor would especially benefit from the Food and Drugs Capacity Building Project because they are more likely to be victims of poor quality foods and access to medication," said G.N.V. Ramana, a senior public health specialist for the World Bank and task leader for the project. "For example, recent household surveys in India indicate that the incidence of diarrhoea in children under five is 20 percent higher for the poorest quintile of the population as compared to the highest quintile. The true difference is probably greater, since poor households tend to under-report illnesses." From policy development, programme coordination and monitoring, the project would also help the health and family welfare ministry strengthen regulatory capacity for food safety at the central and state levels and to educate consumers on matters related to food safety. On the drugs quality and safety aspect, the project will help the government build regulatory capacity for ensuring drugs quality, create consumer awareness and to upgrade related skills in public and private sectors. In the private sector, medium and small-scale manufacturers will benefit from opportunities for training and assistance in improving manufacturing processes and product quality, the World Bank said.
Source: IANS