Street food vendors have poor knowledge of FSSA

Chandigarh:A majority of the street food vendors working at various places in City Beautiful working at the tertiary care hospital have a very poor knowledge of Food Safety and Standards Act (FSSA) guidelines.

This fact has been highlighted in a study conducted by researcher Meenakshi from the School of Public Health, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education & Research (PGIMER).

The study was conducted on various street food vendors in different sectors of Chandigarh. Around 100 street food vendors from different sectors of Chandigarh, including Sectors 27, 24, 23, 22, 19, 16, 15 and 11 were sampled.

The study highlighted the status of conformance of selected street food vendors of Chandigarh of the Food Safety and Standards Regulation, 2011. The findings showed that about 98 per cent of the vendors never underwent any health checks for communicable diseases.

Only 6 per cent of vendors were trained on the aspects of safety and food handling. While only 8 per cent used hand gloves and zero per cent used head gears. The study findings further highlighted that only 11 per cent of thwe vendors had the licence to sell food.

Recently, the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation did the survey of around 24,000 street vendors and soon they will be getting the licences from the department. The Haryana Nav Yuvak Kala Sangam under the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014, conducted the survey.

However, In its first, the Food and Safety Department is also planning to ensure that the city roadside vendors got themselves registered with the UT Food Safety and Standards Department, Chandigarh.