Problems noticed most at joints selling Arabian food
Two city restaurants were temporarily closed down in a raid by the Mobile Vigilance Squad of the Health Department here on Wednesday. The raids were carried out following the death of a student by food poisoning in Thiruvananthapuram two days ago.
Over the past two days, raids led by District Licensing Authority A. Mohammed Rafi were conducted on 20 city restaurants. A squad member said many of them prepared food in unhygienic conditions. The freezers were not working in some places. Cooked food items were kept in open containers.
Presence of open drains near the cooking and food storage areas was noted in some cases. Another major problem was the mixing of vegetarian and non-vegetarian food items while being stored in the freezer.
“Two restaurants, Arabian Dine on Annie Hall Road and Broast at Thondayad were asked to close down temporarily. Since they can solve the problem with the existing infrastructure, they can probably reopen in a week’s time,” said Anil Kumar, Food Safety Officer, who was part of the squad. Mr. Kumar said the problems were noticed most at fast-food joints selling Arabian food. Since those who are running these were fairly new to the industry, they did not follow the hygienic rules.
The Food Safety Commissionerate formed recently according to the Food Safety and Standards Act of 2006 has been organising awareness programmes on hotel hygiene since January. Training programmes were also conducted recently. But only a few hotels participated in this, Mr. Anil Kumar said.
According to the new Act, all hotels have to get new registrations and licenses before August 4. But only 20 per cent of the hotels in the district have complied with the rule till now. The hotels under the Vyapari Vyavasayi Ekopana Samithi had opposed some points in the Act and had asked for an extension. But now they have started applying for licenses.
Meanwhile, the health standing committee of the city Corporation has expressed concern that the Food Safety Act has taken away its powers to take action against food safety offenders.
The health inspectors will hold an emergency meeting on Thursday to discuss on the safety measures to be initiated.
Health inspectors’ emergency meet on Thursday
‘No power for standing committee under new Act’
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