One of the biggest challenges faced by Indian consumers is reduction of salt intake, said experts from The George Institute for Global Health, Public Health Foundation of India and the Centre for Chronic Disease Control. A survey jointly conducted by them showed that only a third of the 7,428 packaged foods surveyed mentioned 'salt content' on the nutrition label. Every fourth package had no mention of nutritional contents at all. "Excess salt in the diets is responsible for about 6 lakh deaths each year (as per the Global Burden of Disease 2013) and is the fitth leading cause of death in India," said George Institute India executive director Dr Vivekanand Jha.

He said this figure was approximately double than reported for 1990.

Excess salt can lead to high blood pressure, which, in turn, increases the risk of stroke, heart attack and kidney failure.

Indians, who traditionally consume a lot of salt, are unaware about the dangers of hidden salt in packaged foods. "In the West, hidden salt in packaged foods accounts for three quarters of salt in the diet and there has been a real push for better labelling" said Dr Jha. "We think it's important that Indian consumers can easily see what's in their food," he added.

The George Institute India has hence launched a mobile app called FoodSwitch that can display a traffic light label coloured green (good), amber or red (limit) depending upon the amount of salt in the product.