Every day, lakhs of residents across Telangana depend on food cooked on pavements, carts and makeshift stalls. For many, street food is not indulgence, it is affordability, accessibility and survival.

From office workers grabbing breakfast to daily wage earners relying on ₹30 meals, the street food ecosystem functions as an informal public canteen. It sustains livelihoods and feeds cities.

But when a system feeds lakhs daily, food safety is no longer a minor compliance issue. It becomes public health infrastructure.

The challenge, as Telangana’s Commissioner of Food Safety Sangeetha Satyanarayana acknowledged in an interaction with The Hindu, is that a large number of vendors fall below the mandatory turnover threshold for licensing and registration. This places them outside routine inspection systems under the Food Safety and Standards Act.

In simple terms: a significant portion of cooked food consumed daily operates beyond formal regulatory oversight.

That is not necessarily neglect. It is a structural gap.

Regulatory Grey Zones

The Food Safety and Standards Act mandates licensing or registration based on turnover and scale. Many small vendors operate below these thresholds. Legally, they may not be required to register. Practically, they still serve large volumes of people.

This creates a regulatory grey zone.

Without licences or registrations:

• Routine inspections become limited
• Enforcement tools become weaker
• Data on scale and compliance remains fragmented

The department has acknowledged this limitation. That transparency matters.

Instead of attempting blanket crackdowns, which often push informal workers further into invisibility, Telangana’s Food Safety Department has chosen a different strategy: prioritise training and awareness over punitive enforcement.

This is not soft governance. It is preventive governance.

Training Over Punishment

The department is focusing on educating vendors about:

• Basic hygiene practices
• Safe food handling
• Clean water usage
• Personal sanitation
• Storage norms

Awareness about registration under the Act is also being promoted.

FBO melas (Food Business Operator melas) are being used to conduct on-the-spot registrations and renewals, alongside training programmes.

This approach recognises a fundamental truth: you cannot regulate what you do not integrate.

Street vendors are not corporate entities with compliance teams. Many operate with limited literacy, thin margins and no formal exposure to regulatory systems. Training bridges that knowledge gap.

From a public health strategy perspective, this shift is significant. Reactive inspections after outbreaks reduce damage. Preventive training reduces risk.

Public Health Lens

Food safety is often treated as episodic, a crisis erupts, inspections follow, headlines fade.

But foodborne illness is not episodic. It is continuous.

Contaminated water, improper storage, cross-contamination and inadequate hygiene can lead to food poisoning outbreaks that disproportionately affect:

• Low-income communities
• Children
• Elderly individuals
• Daily wage workers who cannot afford medical downtime

When lakhs depend on the same ecosystem daily, even minor lapses scale quickly.

Training vendors is therefore not a favour to business. It is a protection of the right to health.

Public health cannot stop at hospitals. It must begin at the point of cooking.

Livelihood and Dignity

India’s street food economy is vibrant. It provides self-employment to lakhs. For many families, it is the only barrier between survival and poverty.

Human rights frameworks recognise both:

• The right to livelihood
• The right to safe food

These rights should not conflict.

Strict enforcement without capacity-building can disrupt livelihoods. Total absence of oversight can compromise health.

Telangana’s approach attempts a balance: bring vendors into the system gradually, educate first, formalise next.

This deserves acknowledgement.

Encouraging compliance through melas and training camps reduces fear of inspectors and builds trust between regulators and vendors. When vendors see the department as a partner rather than an adversary, voluntary compliance improves.

Trust, in regulatory systems, is not incidental. It is strategic.

Telangana’s Oversight Efforts

Telangana’s Food Safety Department has maintained visible enforcement in other sectors, from restaurant inspections to crackdown drives during festive seasons. Food safety officers have conducted raids, seized substandard products and taken legal action where necessary.

The current focus on street vendors complements that vigilance.

Commissioner Sangeetha Satyanarayana’s candid admission about regulatory limits signals institutional awareness. Recognising gaps is the first step toward addressing them.

By prioritising traders in mandis and vegetable markets for registration drives, the department is targeting nodes where food supply chains converge. That systems-level thinking strengthens preventive oversight.

Training does not replace inspection. It reduces the need for punitive intervention.

A National Template

Telangana is not alone in facing this challenge. Across India, informal food ecosystems feed millions daily.

The question is larger than one State: should training and awareness drives become mandatory at national, state and district levels?

Given the scale of India’s informal food economy, periodic vendor training could be institutionalised through:

• District-level certification camps
• Public hygiene toolkits
• QR-based voluntary compliance display systems
• Community monitoring models

Street food culture is an asset. It fuels tourism, supports urban life and preserves culinary heritage. But cultural vibrancy must align with safety standards.

Other States can observe Telangana’s training-first model and adapt it to local contexts. Integration works better than alienation.

Recurring Safety Lapses

Yet, an important question persists. Telangana has conducted vendor training drives in the past as well. Despite that, food safety lapses continue to surface periodically. Just days ago, State authorities cracked down on cereal manufacturing units after raids reportedly uncovered poor hygiene and unsafe products. 

Street vendors are not the only weak link in the chain, formal units too fall short. This raises a structural concern: is training episodic rather than continuous? Are refresher programmes, follow-up inspections and compliance audits strong enough to convert awareness into sustained behavioural change? 

Public health systems cannot rely on one-time sensitisation. Without consistent monitoring and reinforcement, even well-intentioned initiatives risk becoming cyclical responses rather than durable reform.

Beyond Registration

However, training alone is not sufficient.

For lasting impact, structural supports are necessary:

• Access to clean water
• Waste disposal facilities
• Affordable storage solutions
• Clear, simplified registration processes

Urban planning must recognise street food as an economic reality, not a temporary inconvenience.

If vendors operate on pavements without sanitation infrastructure, hygiene becomes harder regardless of awareness.

Food safety is not only about individual responsibility. It is also about systemic design.

Building Food Safety Culture

The deeper shift required is cultural.

Consumers often prioritise taste and affordability over visible hygiene. Vendors prioritise speed and cost efficiency under intense competition. Regulators balance limited manpower with vast coverage areas.

Training initiatives can spark behavioural change but sustained culture change requires continuity.

If FBO melas become regular, if refresher sessions are held periodically, and if registration becomes aspirational rather than intimidating, compliance will strengthen organically.

In governance, durable reform rarely arrives through shock. It grows through repetition.

Safety as Public Infrastructure

Street food feeds lakhs every day. That makes it part of the city’s living infrastructure.

The question is not whether vendors should be policed more aggressively. The question is whether the system can evolve to make safe food the norm without dismantling livelihoods.

Telangana’s current approach suggests a recognition of that balance. This is not about punishing small vendors. It is about strengthening the invisible safety net beneath a massive informal economy.

Food safety, ultimately, is not a headline issue. It is a daily trust contract between vendor and citizen. When governance chooses training over fear and integration over exclusion, that contract becomes stronger. And when lakhs eat on the streets each day, strengthening that contract is not optional. It is essential.

The Logical Indian’s Perspective

At The Logical Indian, we believe food safety and livelihood security must not be framed as opposing forces. Telangana’s training-first approach reflects a governance model rooted in empathy rather than intimidation — and that is a direction worth strengthening.

When lakhs rely on affordable street food for daily sustenance, safety becomes a public health responsibility, not a procedural checkbox. We appreciate the transparency shown by Telangana’s Food Safety Commissioner Sangeetha Satyanarayana and the department’s effort to integrate, educate and formalise rather than alienate informal vendors.