SWEETS SHOPS, STREET VENDORS UNDER HEALTH DEPT RADAR

As the sale of adulterated food items, especially sweets hits a high during the festive rush, the Health Department has taken a several steps to ensure the safety of denizens. Besides collecting food samples from the hotels, sweet shops and confectioneries, the department has asked all the food safety officers (FSOs) to keep a tab on street food vendors too this season.

Notably, registration of the street food vendors has become mandatory as number of street vendors comparatively increases during the festivals within the city. In exercise of the powers conferred under section 92 of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, FSSAI has proposed Draft of Food Safety and Standards Regulation, 2010 under which Part 3.2 makes it mandatory for all Food Business Operators in the country to be registered or licensed in accordance with the procedures laid down in the regulation.

Still, lack of food analysts at State food laboratory can pose a big hurdle in examining the collected food samples before the festivities. However, Joint Food Safety Commissioner, Shakeel Jabbar said, “Within a week, all vacant posts will be filled up as all recruitment process has been completed until now by the department officials.”

Moreover, to check the supply of coloured food items, particularly milk products, instructions have been issued to all the Additional Chief Medical Officers (ACMOs) and Food Safety Officers (FSOs) in the rural pockets as well and have been ordered to remain vigilant and crackdown on all those shops that seems little apprehensive.

“A letter with proper guidelines has been issued recently to all the ACMOs, FSOs including all the DCs of all the respective districts to ensure regular inspections at sweet shops and collect samples of edible items. Inspection is also being carried out at interior areas this time. Street vendors are also being checked out since after April 2014, registration of all street food vendors has become mandatory now,” added Jabbar.

Presently, there are three food safety officers (FSOs) for all the 55 wards in Ranchi. The department has deployed few additional staffs from community health centers to keep a track record of food items sold out during the festivals.

“Until now, we have collected 11 samples from different shops located at Upper Bazaar, New Market and Kanke Road. As far as collecting samples from street vendors are concerned, we have sent approximately 700 samples from different wards to food lab till date. Last year, manually 1800 samples collected from street vendors were sent for assessment,” said Food safety officer, KP Singh, Incharge of ward number 25 to 35.