The food safety department has been on an overdrive of late. The department has raided shops, manufacturing units and bakeries for the past two months, determined to ensure that food consumed in the district is safe. They have conducted at least 40 raids since May, which is almost a five-fold increase compared to the usual frequency of raids.
On Friday, along with the fisheries department, the food safety department raided 110 fish stalls in the Ukkadam fish market.
They say that continuous raids are for establishments to understand that they are constantly being watched. The raids are also conducted to zero in on suppliers and distributors of adulterated and banned products. Traders associations however say that food safety officials do not understand the ground reality when conducting raids and are having a field day collecting bribes.
The food safety department in the district has been going on a raid almost every day cracking down on establishments across the board, including petty shops, street vendors, godowns, manufacturing units and restaurants. In June, officials have seized 1.3 tonnes of banned tobacco products, 25 tonnes of mislabeled oil, 400 litres of expired soft drinks, low grade plastic bags and spoons and adulterated chilli chicken masala powders.
However, officials say that crackdowns will continue till they find the main manufacturers, suppliers and distributors of the above products. “When we confiscate these products from shops, we only find small quantities. The seizure does not affect them because they will get a new supply the next day,” says designated food safety officer, Dr Vijayalalithambigai.
“We want to raid and keep a watch on shops continuously so that we can find their supplier and through them their distributor,” she says. “This is especially important in cases of gutkha, haans, adulterated tea and mangoes,” she adds.
“Hitting the major distributors and their godowns will stop the products from being present in several shops,” she says.
Twenty days after 15 tonnes of fish laced with formalin were seized, officials raided all the shops in the Ukkadam fish market. They found none of the shops using any chemical preservatives. They also instructed shops to start using banana leaves to wrap and sell their fish instead of plastic covers and use mosquito nets to guard their shops and fish from houseflies.
Traders welcome the food safety department’s move to crackdown on adulterated tea, adulterated oil, misbranded oil or even expired products, but say issuing notices and levying fines to small shops and bakeries based on laws in the food safety and standards act was not practical. “Practically, we cannot do business as per the laws in the FSSAI Act. I doubt even government officials have read all the 1,000 odd pages of the act, so how can a small bakery owner have read it,” asks president of the Tamil Nadu Vyabarigal Sangam, Vikrama Raja.
“They want products to be cooled and frozen at -20 degrees celsius, which is not available with most small vendors. They want only a specific type of knife to be used to cut onions and water used by bakeries even for wetting their dough to be boiled and free of any form of contamination. We use corporation drinking water, so the department should speak to the corporation to improve their water quality instead of targeting bakeries. Small vendors can’t afford to use mineral water for every small process in baking,” he said.
“While raids to catch “unlawful” practices are good, they become an excuse and a route for other inspectors to collect bribes from vendors,” he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment