NASHIK: At a time when the entire state government machinery is toiling hard to make the Kumbh Mela at Nashik and Trimbakeshwar a smooth and safe affair, food, an area of potential mishap has remained poorly supervised here.
About 50,000 people eat out every day at aroud 100 Annachhatra or food shelters providing free meals to devotees at Sadhugram and Trimbakeswar and over 10,000 people snack at over 500 permitted food stalls selling all kinds of ready to eat food items to visitors. However, to monitor this huge scale of activity, state government has assigned only eight food safety officials as against the actual requirement of 50.
The overburdened FSOs are also ill equipped to carry out spot tests and other slew of measures to ensure that food prepared and consumed at the Kumbh is safe and free of bacterial contamination. In short, mishaps like food posining and food borne illnesses are only waiting to happen at the Kumbh.
Sad enough, the overburdened officials who are made to oversee the safey of food are at the receiving end as seven of the 12 posts of food safety officials for Nashik are vacant. Even the post of joint commissioner who heads the Nashik division of FDA is also vacant since May this year which is indicative of state government's morbid indifference towards food safety at the Kumbh.
The shortage of manpower is also one of the reasons that the state government's grant of Rs 11 lakh given to FDA to carry out miscellanous expenses supporting safety measures during the Kumbh has remained largely untilised till date. Barring pamphlets and stickers about food safety measures pasted at every food joint and shelter, the funds have not been put to judicious use.
Assistant commissioner Yogesh Bendkule who is acting joint commissioner for Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Nashik division, however, claims that all measures of food safety are in place at the mega event. "Our FSOs are woking day in and day out to ensure that food prepared and consumed at both the sites of Kumbh is safe. There has not been a single incident of food poisoning anywhere so far. Meetings and workshops we held of food handlers and food business operations prior to the Kumbh and daily visits to food establishments have helped us enormously to prevent food posining cases," Bendkule said.
Bendkule claims that in view of the short staff, the department has roped in food safety officials from other places specially for Kumbh.
"We have brought in nine officials from Ahmednagar, Dhule, Jalgaon, Malegaon, Manmad and Shirpur to carry out food safety measures at the Kumbh," Bendkule said. However, a civic official from Nashik Municipal Corporation said that only eight FSO were only monitoring the work on ground.
"There are only eight food safety officials for the Kumbh. Five are from FDA and three from NMC. These people are overburdened and it is humanly impossible for them to ensure complainces of all food safety measures from the food handlers and food business operators at Trimbakeshwar and Nashik," he said.
A state health official also confirmed that only eight FSOs were supervising the massive food activity at the Kumbh.
"Food is one area which has potential of putting lives of thousands of devotees at risk at the Kumbh. But state government seems to be involved only in ensuring that there are no stampedes, police bandbost is proper and transport and movement of crowd is smooth. But what about food which is being prepared with complete disregard to hygeine and sanitation, there is stark absene of pest control measures when the entire area is replete with rodents, insects and flies," he said.
When TOI visited one of the Annchhattras at Trimbakeswar with comparatively better facilities on Thursday, the food was uncovered. People who prepare the food were unaware about the importance of basic personal care like cutting nails, keeping hair short using head gears and hand gloves.
"People who come in direct contact with food should be free of all sorts of communicale and skin diseases but there is crucial safety measure is not being ensured by the FDA here. Every thing about food is left to God's mercy only," said another health official at the state run health facility at Nashik.
The main source for bacteria to grow and spread is through milk and milk based preprarations.
"To rule out that milk and milk products are free from of bacterial contamination, the FSO need to have spot test equipments. But we do not have any spot test facility. Currently, it is only through visual inspection that we judge that milk is ok or not fit to be conumed which can be dangerous sometime," said an FSO who refused to be name.
The state FDA has mobile van facility which provides for spot tests but it is yet to be deployed at the sites of Kumbh.
"State government has given us a mobile van which will enable spot tests. But it will start working in two to three days," Bendkule said.
He however claims that the FSO are drawing samples of food, raw as well as prepared, every day and it is tested at the district health laboratory located within the campus of Civil hospital, Nashik. "We draw around 15 to 20 samples of raw and prepared food every day and send the samples to the designated laboratory for tests. We get the tests results the same day," Bendkule said.
State health officials point out that significant time consumed in drawing and testing sample can prove life threathing especially in milk and milk products which arre fertile grounds for bacteria to grow and spread. Looking at the scale of Kumbha, FSO need at leas three mobile vans so that spots tests could be carried out simultaneously at Trimbakeshwar, Sadhugram and Ramkund.
"Only spot test facility can ensure speedy identification of bacterial growth and help avert food poisoning and food borne illnesses and this simple and cost effective measure is not put to use at such a large congragtion which is sad," said health activist Sanjay Dabhade.
When contacted state FDA commissioner Harshadeep Kamble admitted that the food safety work at the Kumbh need to be scaled up.
"We are going to give two more mobile vans to FDA Nashik division to carry out spots tests. We will beef up the manpower as per requirement. Currently we are roping in FSOs from other FDA divisions. I am going to take the review of food safety measures at the Kumbh soon," Kamble said.
Despite repeated attempts state FDA minister Girish Bapat could not cotacted for his comment.
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