Zero Miles founder Jibran Khan uses an FSSAI meeting to highlight regulatory hurdles faced by restaurants, cafés, and other food businesses in the Valley.
The debate around doing business in Kashmir’s food sector has shifted to a familiar concern: navigating multiple licenses and compliance requirements. Jibran Khan, founder of Zero Miles, has thus called for a unified, single-window licensing framework that could make it easier for food businesses to operate and expand across the Valley.
Khan proposed a meeting with Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) CEO RajitPunhani at the Sher-i-Kashmir International Convention Centre (SKICC) in Srinagar on Monday. The meeting was part of Punhani’s four-day visit to Kashmir to assess challenges faced by Food Business Operators (FBOs) and examine ways to improve the regulatory system. Instead of attending the eighth-anniversary celebrations of his food chain, Khan used the occasion to present concerns affecting entrepreneurs in the sector.
Multiple licenses for operating a business are seen as a barrier.
According to Khan, businesses operating several outlets currently face separate licensing requirements, repeated documentation and individual audits. He argued that such procedures can make expansion more difficult, particularly for small businesses and emerging entrepreneurs.
His proposal centres on a single registration and compliance framework covering multiple outlets operating under the same brand. A digital dashboard, he suggested, could bring licensing and compliance processes into one system and reduce the need for repeated filings. The proposal aims to simplify administration without weakening food safety requirements, an important distinction as the sector continues to grow.
Call for a more accessible grievance redressal.
Khan also raised concerns about how small food businesses deal with operational and regulatory problems. He said entrepreneurs can struggle to identify the appropriate authority when issues arise at the field level.
He called for a clearer grievance-redressal mechanism through which smaller businesses can raise concerns without navigating complicated bureaucratic processes. The discussion also touched on the particular operating conditions in Kashmir. Seasonal disruptions, difficult supply chains and infrastructure constraints can add to the challenges already faced by food businesses, Khan noted.
The Jammu and Kashmir Food Commissioner reportedly responded positively to the concerns and outlined a proposed roadmap for restaurants, cafés and highway food businesses. Officials said a database of such establishments is expected to be developed within six months.
The single-window licensing proposal has also been forwarded to senior FSSAI officials for further internal consideration.
