Colas should not be clubbed with tobacco products: Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Food Processing Minister

Food processing minister, Harsimrat Kaur Badal told ET Now that the softdrinks should be treated differently than tobacco products.

Edited Excerpts:

The opposition said retail is against the conscience of this country. Is it?


No I think… I do not know what the opposition will manufacture. It will come up with something or the other.

On retail, it is your constituents who kind of get up in arms and…

In a food processing sector, the bulk of is in the unorganised sector. There is a very small amount which is in the organised sector.

So you do not believe this is a start of opening up multi-brand retail as an entirety.

No not at all. It is definitely a start of opening up of multi-brand retail in the food sector.

The Colas perhaps will be the in the sin tax and all of that and I know the companies have all been at your doorstep seeking help. What is your personal view on this?

On a purely personal level, I think this is a call that finance takes and for reason best known to them but somewhere when the industry comes and tells me that if my beverage is taxed at the same level as it a tobacco and or clubbed, they say we do not mind the taxing as much as we mind being clubbed with a tobacco, with something which is actually causes fatalities.

To call a Cola a sin same as a cigarette or a tobacco personally to me it does seem that we need to segregate a little bit more. Well I have raised it with the honourable finance minister saying that you tax them what you want but at least do not club them in the same sin category as a cigarette or tobacco because that is a little unfair.

Patanjali a big success story out there. Some people believe that some of their standards or some of their claims are wrong. The CST has for instance discontinued sourcing amla juice for instance. I just want to understand are there going to be specific provision for things like these to protect consumers?

This domain comes under FSSAI. Patanjali like everyone else also has to take the necessary approvals according to the guidelines of the same for everybody and what they are making they must ensure that the standards are met because at the end of the day the bigger you grow, it is your reputation at stake. One of the reasons why the multinationals do not fool around because they have a reputation worldwide. Now Patanjali has done really well. The brand has built up. It is a domestic brand which has built up really well and now if they want to carry on and build from where they are building, they will have to maintain the quality standards because incidents like this will damage them.