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By:

Amol Deshmukh and Vaibhav Mathkari

5 March 2025 at 11:13:08 pm

Can Maharashtra’s Food Industry Take Civic Responsibility?

The food industry can turn everyday business practices into everyday civic action. AI generated image We all love eating out. Maharashtra’s food culture is inseparable from its identity. From a small vada pav stall to a five-star hotel, and from a family restaurant to a large wedding caterer, food businesses are part of everyday life. What responsibility does a food business have towards the citizen? Is serving tasty food enough? Or should restaurants also minimise food and plastic waste,...

Can Maharashtra’s Food Industry Take Civic Responsibility?

The food industry can turn everyday business practices into everyday civic action. AI generated image We all love eating out. Maharashtra’s food culture is inseparable from its identity. From a small vada pav stall to a five-star hotel, and from a family restaurant to a large wedding caterer, food businesses are part of everyday life. What responsibility does a food business have towards the citizen? Is serving tasty food enough? Or should restaurants also minimise food and plastic waste, maintain clean kitchens, use safe ingredients, manage waste responsibly and avoid traffic problems outside their premises? Several countries are already asking these questions. Japan has made reducing food loss a national priority, bringing businesses, government agencies and citizens together to prevent usable food from becoming waste. France has taken steps to reduce single-use plastics, including plastic drinking-water bottles in collective catering. Singapore requires large commercial premises to segregate and manage food waste. The European Union is also working to reduce unnecessary single-use plastics and promote circular packaging. Maharashtra need not copy them. But they offer one lesson: civic responsibility cannot rest with the government alone. The food industry has a major role to play. What if Maharashtra took up an 11-point challenge? Imagine major hotels, restaurants, caterers and food establishments voluntarily adopting a civic charter. First, reduce food waste. Large kitchens should track daily waste and aim to cut it by 25 per cent and then 50 per cent. Food safe for consumption should, wherever possible and legally appropriate, be redirected for human consumption. The rest should go for composting, biogas or other scientific treatment. Second, reduce unnecessary plastic water bottles. If safe drinking water is available, why automatically give every customer a plastic bottle? Maharashtra can develop a model using glass, steel and refill systems. Third, rethink packaging. Food delivery has created mountains of packaging. Do we really need all this plastic? Reusable, recyclable and genuinely sustainable alternatives should be preferred. Fourth, end open dumping of food waste. Restaurants should not send organic waste to roadside dumping points. Segregation and treatment should be part of commercial food-waste management. Fifth, make healthy choices available. Menus should include lower-salt, lower-sugar and nutritionally balanced options. This is about choice, not telling people what to eat. Sixth, use cooking oil responsibly. Restaurants should record its use and replacement and ensure used oil goes through authorised channels. Food safety and environmental responsibility should go together. Seventh, make kitchen hygiene a culture, not a certificate. The World Health Organization’s principles are simple: keep clean; separate raw and cooked food; cook properly; maintain safe temperatures; and use safe water and raw materials. The challenge is making them daily habits. Eighth, give consumers a voice. A QR code could allow customers to report serious food-safety concerns through a system that records and follows up complaints. Ninth, use technology intelligently. Artificial intelligence, sensors and digital systems can monitor temperature, hygiene schedules, waste segregation and other safety parameters. Tenth, think beyond the kitchen. If customers block footpaths, roads or emergency entrances, restaurants should help manage the situation. A successful restaurant should not become a problem for its neighbourhood. Finally, the Safe Food Oath. Can Maharashtra’s food industry voluntarily pledge that no known unsafe substance will knowingly be used in food? The proposed oath could state: “We pledge that we shall not knowingly use any carcinogenic, teratogenic, hepatotoxic, nephrotoxic or allergenic substance as a colouring agent, flavour or taste enhancer, adulterant, sweetener, or preservative or for any other food-processing purpose. We shall use only legally permitted and scientifically evaluated ingredients and additives and maintain transparency and accountability in the preparation and serving of food.” This is not a call to ban every chemical or synthetic food additive. Many are legally permitted after safety evaluation. The point is simple: unsafe substances should never be shortcuts for making food cheaper, brighter, sweeter or more attractive. Civic Food Industry Award Maharashtra could take the idea further by inviting the food and hospitality industry to adopt an 11-point Civic Food Industry Charter. Those meeting the standards could be independently assessed and recognised through a Maharashtra Civic Food Industry Award. The award would ask not only, “How good is your food?” But also, how much food did you save? How much plastic did you eliminate? How safely do you manage your kitchen? What happens to your food waste? Are your ingredients safe? Do you respect the neighbourhood? That would give “hospitality” a deeper meaning. Maharashtra has the institutions, entrepreneurs, technology and, most importantly, a food industry large enough to make a difference. The government can make regulations. Citizens can demand better standards. But the food industry can lead by choice. So the question before Maharashtra’s hotels, restaurants, caterers and food businesses is simple: Are you ready to accept the challenge — not just to serve citizens, but to take responsibility for them? (Deshmukh is a forensics scientist. Mathkari is co-founder, Civic Engineering Foundation.)

The Exile Within

The Congress’ ongoing friction with Shashi Tharoor proves once again that the greatest talent of India’s grand old party lies in political self-harm.

Kerala
Kerala

Few political parties in the world are as accomplished at wasting talent as the Congress. Time and again, it has demonstrated a remarkable ability to alienate precisely those figures who might have rescued it from irrelevance. The most self-inflicted episode arguably centres on former diplomat, author, MP and one its brightest faces - Shashi Tharoor.


Inconveniently for the party, Tharoor has increasingly become a reminder of everything the Congress no longer is.


His recent absence from a recent high-level brainstorming session on Kerala’s upcoming elections disconcerted the party top brass while spurring frenzied speculation once more about where Tharoor might be heading.


The meeting, chaired by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi, was meant to signal preparedness for a state election the party believes it can win. Instead, it exposed the rot beneath the surface. Tharoor not only stayed away but openly acknowledged that he has “issues” with the party and that media reports about his unhappiness were “partly correct.”


The leadership now proposes to “invite” Tharoor for talks, as though he were an errant district secretary rather than one of the party’s few remaining national assets. Tharoor has electoral pull in Kerala, credibility with the middle class, and a public stature Congress sorely lacks.


Tharoor is faulted for his intellectual independence, for occasionally praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi where praise is due, and for refusing to mouth the party line with sufficient fury. In today’s Congress led by Gandhi and Kharge, any deviation is treated as heresy. Loyalty is measured not by service or success but by proximity to the high command.


The backdrop to this farce is a party whose central leadership remains frozen in time. Rahul Gandhi, despite years of electoral failure, continues to preside over Congress as its moral compass and strategic brain. That a leader who has repeatedly failed to expand the party’s footprint cannot find space or the grace for someone of Tharoor’s calibre speaks volumes. It takes a special kind of political obtuseness to marginalise a man who enhances the party’s seriousness simply by entering the room.


The result is predictable. Rumours swirl of Tharoor being courted by rivals. The CPM, ever pragmatic, has reportedly explored channels of communication, even floating the idea of accommodation within the Left Democratic Front. The BJP, less subtle, has made its pitch in public. None of this should surprise Congress. When a party publicly humiliates its own stars, others will happily offer them respect.


While Tharoor has denied claims of clandestine meetings (in Dubai) and insists he remains a Congressman, loyalty has limits, especially when it is met with systematic sidelining. Being snubbed at public events, excluded from strategy sessions, and whispered about by organisational mediocrities is not a test of commitment; it is an invitation to leave.


Kerala, often cited as Congress’s last redoubt of internal democracy, now mirrors the dysfunction of the centre. The party’s brief flirtation with unity, symbolised by Tharoor’s participation in recent events, has given way to old insecurities. The Congress seems incapable of sustaining détente with anyone who does not fit neatly into its dynastic hierarchy.


The tragedy is not merely personal but structural and institutional. The Congress desperately needs leaders who can speak to aspirational India, who can match the BJP intellectually rather than just morally, and who can project confidence rather than nostalgia. While Tharoor obviously fits that bill, the party has long treated his independence as a problem rather than a solution.


In politics, decline is rarely caused by enemies alone. More often, it is hastened by arrogance, fear of talent and an inability to recognise value unless it comes wrapped in pedigree. By alienating Shashi Tharoor and favouring those who slavishly toe the party line, the Congress once again proves that its most formidable opponent is itself and that no amount of brainstorming can compensate for a thick-headed leadership that cannot recognise its own gems who shine in plain sight.

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