Why Farmers / Small Businesses need to get their FSSAI license in India and Steps to get it without paying bribe

Kheti-Badi.com
Jul 20, 2017 · 4 min read

This article particularly focuses on getting ‘Food Safety and Standards Authority of India’ (FSSAI) license for ‘Small Farmers’, however, the procedure is more or less same for small businesses, startups and emerging entrepreneurs.

Even though India is an ‘Agriculture based Economy’, and every political leader talks about empowering farmers, there is very little information available for farmers. Many great thinkers would talk about various ways of extra farm income such as adding value at the farm level by doing packaging, processing and direct marketing. This might sound a good idea based on this ‘Wise Old Saying’ — “Give a Man a Fish, and You Feed Him for a Day. Teach a Man To Fish, and You Feed Him for a Lifetime”. But the ground reality is, that, there are no efforts taken to make the process efficient, so it can be approachable by masses. To solve this issue, we decided to help farmers by giving them step by step knowledge to obtain their FSSAI license, so they can sell their own brand and increase their income.

Sadly, the procedure to obtain FSSAI Registartion / License is so complicated, that it discourages people to even try it if they ever decide to brand themselves. (No surprise here as India is not in top 100 countries in the world of ‘Ease of Doing Business’.) FSSAI has only one office per district and the Government (FSSAI) officials sitting there are least bothered to help small poor business people / farmers. They also make sure that they discourage poor people to apply and obtain the certificate by themselves. Eventually, you pay agents / professional companies to get license for you. Of course taking help from ‘Agents’ / ‘professionals’ will cost you 10–20 times extra money than the original cost of registration, which is just Rs. 100 per year for small businesses across India! The FSSAI Lic. cost is somewhere around Rs. 2000–5000, depending upon the turnover (Rs. 12,00,000 and above), type of business and location you apply for.

Food Licensing and Registration Systems (FLRS) is an online application system launched by FSSAI to apply and track for Registration / License certificate. Even if the application process is online, The poor ‘User Interface’ (UI) makes sure that first time applicant spends good 4–5 hours to understand and then complete the process. There is no sample form available, the only link available to download form, collects your contact information, which then goes to a private company. This company will email / call you and then will quote you 10–20 times higher for their service offerings before sending a link to download FSSAI form (#ease of doing business?).

Sample of completed FSSAI Form-A (Registration)

This form typically requires supporting documents, every state in India has its own set of requirements. To get list of your state, click here — Food Licensing & Registration System -State Site Mapm and follow the instructions. (Common required documents are — Name ID, Address Proof, Utility Bill and a Photo.

To Apply — go to (official website), click -

  1. Licensing and Registration (center of page), then click
  2. ‘Apply Now’ (top right corner), then click
  3. ‘Accept’ the liability, then
  4. ‘Select State’,
  5. Select ‘No’ (assuming the business is small, so activities carried out are not in more than one state)
  6. Select ‘Manufacturer’ tap on top of listing (assuming you are a farmer or farm producing group), then
  7. Select ‘All Processing Units including Relabellers and Repackers’
  8. The it will ask you to login / register
  9. Follow the steps and complete the application (Refer the image above)

Whether you are applying as an individual or a company, Most common steps to apply FSSAI Registration (Form-A) are -

1. Complete the online form for respective State

2. Download, Print, Sign, Upload the declaration form provided with online application.

3. Photo — digital copy to upload on portal while applying (e.g. Passport size photo)

4. Identity Proof — digital copy (Pan Card / Driving Lic.)

5. Address Proof — digital copy (Adhar Card)

6. Supporting document (for Name and Address) issued by any recognized authority (e.g. Telephone / Electricity Bill / Agreement / Ownership documents)

7. Take a print out of application, sign it and upload it back along with supporting documents. (It is recommended to make a word file with all copies of ‘other supporting document’, convert it in PDF and then upload as one file)

Now the fun part begins -

After applying (this would take 2–5 hours to collect docs and complete the application), you should get a confirmation receipt via email / SMS. Then there is a very good chance that the status of your application won’t change for 2–3 weeks. (You can login with same credentials to check the status). There won’t be any email / phone number given to follow up your application. If you do not get a notification from FSSAI by post (most likely, you will not), then you will have to locate their district level office and meet the officials to find the reason for not issuing the license.

If they (FSSAI officials) coordinate with you, then you are very lucky, if not then you will have to follow-up on the application, and rectify mistakes pointed out if any. This so-called ‘online’ application, hence becomes off-line-business :) for many Government officials / agents. We got our after repetitive follow-ups, but the officer was supportive, I assume they are equally supportive with other small businesses, but unfortunately this is not the case in may FSSAI district offices in India!


About kheti-badi.com : kheti-badi.com is a platform to buy-sell organic products directly from farmers, the registration and listing products is free.

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Kheti-Badi.com

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(Marketplace for Organic Products - Buy from farmers)

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