With a view to providing a relief outlet to the Indian industry, CIFTI has been inviting complaints from traders involved in export business so that the grounds on which their export shipments have been rejected or detainedby a foreign country can be probed more scientifically and relief be provided. The wing is headed by CIFTI secretary Vijay Sardana. A communication to the recent processed food industry summit delegates by CIFTI in Delhi said such open interaction with CIFTI would help them take up the matter with the government authorities.

The communication also listed hundreds of grounds on which Indian exports can be rejected, for example, in the US, under the Import Detention Report basis.

The detention list includes reasons ranging from abnormal/damaged cans, animal filth, presence of aflatoxin/mycotoxin,banned devices, borates, false or misleading labels to fraud drug, fraud food, glass/metal fragments, inaccurate calibrations, inadequate acidification, inadequate warnings/directions, excess of alcohol, decomposed items, chemical contaminated containers, E-coli/coliforms, not labelled in English, no provision for tamper resistance and hundreds of other grounds.

Meanwhile, sources in FICCI told The Financial Express that rejection of Indian exports has become quite frequent in various countries, particularly the US, the European Union and Japan. Shipment after shipment of marine products, fruits and textiles coming back to the Indian shores are a common place in the Indian trade scenario, a senior trade expert in FICCI pointed out requesting anonymity.

It is pointed out, for example, that Indian alphonso mangoes, a fruit that is in great demand in countries like Japan, which used to fetch something like $ 7-8 a kg some years back could now fetch up to $13-14 or more now, if only India could adhereto Japan's strict quarantine laws. However, on the ground of some external flies having been found in some despatches, alphonso mango shipments got rejected a few years back.

The Japanese industry offered to set up fumigation facilities in India so that external fly-infested mangoes could be fumigated and re-exported. This evinced little interest by the Indian industry. Moreover, since Japan was getting cheaper mangoes from countries like Brazil, Nigeria etc, they did not pursue the project and the proposal died a natural death.