New Delhi: India’s food safety regulatory network took at least 12 months to test   and raise its suspicions about Maggi noodles although experts say the tests it conducted can be done within a week.

While Uttar Pradesh food inspectors had tested noodle samples from a shop by April 2014, it was not until April this year that the Central Food Laboratory in Calcutta reported excessive lead in the samples, stirring a call for nationwide testing by the country’s apex food safety regulator.

While Nestle India, citing tests by accredited laboratories, has asserted that its noodles do not contain lead, the controversy has exposed what some experts say is the sluggishness with which the country’s food regulatory network operates.

“A reliable test result looking for heavy metals such as lead shouldn’t take more than three days, at most perhaps a week,” said Koppal Suryanarayana Rao, a toxicology consultant in Bangalore.

The samples, first tested by an Uttar Pradesh state laboratory in Gorakhpur by April last year, appear to have been trapped in what senior officials with the Uttar Pradesh Food Safety and Drug Administration (FSDA) and the Calcutta lab describe as procedural delays.

At one point during the 12-month gap, CFL, Calcutta, wrote to Uttar Pradesh food regulators asking for an additional quantity of noodles from the batch they had tested because the Calcutta lab had run out of the noodles required to complete the tests.

The initial alert by the Gorakhpur lab wasn’t about lead but about the presence of the flavour enhancer monosodium glutamate (MSG), a senior state official said. The Gorakhpur lab is not equipped to test for lead.

“But the packet mentioned the product did not contain MSG, so it was an issue of misbranding,” Hemant Rao, principal secretary in the Uttar Pradesh FSDA, told The Telegraph.

Under current rules, Rao said, the state had to inform the manufacturer about its finding and allow it 30 days to challenge the state lab’s finding and demand an independent test in a central government lab.

Rao said Nestle’s appeal for a fresh test arrived in July 2014 and the FSDA sent the samples to CFL, Calcutta, within weeks of receiving the appeal. A senior CFL official, who requested not to be named, said the lab gets anywhere between 100 and 200 samples every year.

The official said the lab is understaffed by about 50 per cent. “We get many imports samples, court samples and customs samples – they get priority, although we try to do things as fast as possible.”

Sometime between October and November last year, Rao said, the CFL wrote to the FSDA seeking more noodle samples. It’s unclear whether the FSDA had initially sent an insufficient quantity of samples.

The CFL delivered its report, confirming the presence of MSG and mentioning the presence of lead beyond permissible limits, in April this year, Rao said. Nestle has said it does not add MSG to noodles in India.

“However, the product contains glutamate derived from hydrolysed groundnut protein, onion powder, and wheat flour. Glutamate produces a positive test result in a test for MSG,” the company said.

The CFL’s report of lead prompted the apex food safety body, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), to seek nationwide sampling of the noodles last month.

Toxicology and health experts say the gap between the first tests and the FSSAI call highlights the laxity of the food regulatory network in India.

“There are so many potential contaminants to worry about – pesticides, heavy metals such as lead, antibiotics,” said Abbas Ali Mahdi, professor of biochemistry at the King George Medical University, Lucknow, and president of the Indian Society for Lead Awareness and Research.

Mahdi said slow regulatory processes might deprive doctors and epidemiologists of enough time to recognise connections between illnesses and exposure to potential toxins.

“Many illnesses may be associated with the ingestion of toxins, but neither the patients nor the doctors know it.”