Feb 17, 2018
Mumbai: Fake Food Safety Inspector Demands Rs 15,000 From Ghatkopar Hotel, Caught
Nashik Man Had Demanded Rs 15 K From Ghatkopar Hotel Manager, Who Became Suspicious When He Was Told A Receipt Would Be Sent The Next Day
Omkar Bhanushali
The police have arrested a man posing as a food safety inspector at a popular Ghatkopar hotel. According to cops, the man, identified as Omkar Bhanushali, was carrying an ID card of a Vigilance Food Safety Inspector from the Food Safety and Standard Authority of India (FSSAI). He allegedly demanded Rs 15,000 from the hotel as "fine".
Hotel Radha Krishna, located at Ghatkopar West is a famous joint serving Indian as well as Chinese food. On Thursday, a man walked into the hotel and started taking photos. When the hotel manager objected to this, the man introduced himself as an officer from the FSSAI.
After the 'inspection', Bhanushali started mentioning flaws in the hotel. When the manager enquired what the hotel authorities should do, Bhanushali demanded R15,000 money as fine.
Bhanushali told the manager to pay in cash and said a receipt would be sent to him the following day. This made the manager suspicious, who told Bhanushali to wait and called up senior police inspector Vyankat Patil at Ghatkopar police station.
Patil said, "I received a call from the hotel saying an FSSAI officer was demanding money from them. I asked them to tell the person to wait and sent my officers to crosscheck his identity. When asked about his tenure at FSSAI, Bhanushali seemed baffled. The team brought him to the police station, where he confessed to impersonating an FSSAI officer," Patil said.
A Nashik resident, Bhanushali claimed to be an advocate. "We have found that he has visited many hotels across Mumbai, posing as an FSSAI officer. We are contacting these hotels and to verify the facts," said another officer. Bhanushali has been booked under IPC 170 for impersonating a public servant.
Domino’s Pizza To Shell Out 9.5 Lakh Rupees As A Fine For Using Unfit Cheese
International pizza chain Dominoes has been slapped with a fine of 9.5 lakh rupees by Additional District Magistrate of Shahjahanpur for using cheese unfit for consumption in their pizzas.
Facts
On 4th July 2011, food security officer Yugul Kishore took a sample of cheese from an outlet of Dominos at Shahjahanpur and dispatched it for the lab test at government regional public analysis laboratory in Varanasi. After complete and detailed examination of the sample sent, Food analyst UC Gangwar reported that the milk fat in the diced super stretch Mozzarella cheese sample was below 35 percent. 35 percent milk fat is the minimum level prescribed by the Food Safety and Standard Authority of India in Mozzarella cheese to be fit for consumption.
The report was sent to the food security officer on 5th August 2015 after the lab tests on the sample were finished in-between 22 July to 28 July 2015.
A case was filed against Jubilant Food Works (franchisee for Domino’s pizza), Schreiber Dynamic Dairies in Pune(the supplier) and the seller Suresh Upadhyaya after serving them with an official court notice.
Judgement
The trial lasted for almost two years and during the course of the trial defendant even filed a counter case arguing that sample of cheese taken was not kept under advised conditions. The court found all the three defendants guilty and imposed a fine of 9.5 lakh rupees out of which district manager of Jubilant Food Work has to pay 4 lakh rupees. The supplier Schreiber Dynamic Dairies in Pune has to pay 5 lakh rupees and the remaining balance of rupees 50 thousand rupees will be borne by the seller Suresh Upadhyaya.
Moreover, Additional District Magistrate of Shahjahanpur JK Sharma added that “the sample failed to pass the lab test and it was a serious issue as they were not delivering what they have promised.”
Spokesperson of Jubilant Food Works stated that same batch of cheese at a NABL- certified lab confirms that the fat content in the cheese is as per the limit mentioned by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India. District manager of Jubilant Food was unaware of the fine imposed in this matter and added that all legal issues were being dealt with Jubilant Foods including this one as well.
Learning Outcome
Food Safety and Standard Authority will not allow any food producer big or small, to sell food-products in Indian markets which do not fulfill safety requirement and standard of quality prescribed by it.
Juice vendor arrested in Odisha after 300 people hospitalised
CUTTACK: A day after nearly 300 people, including children, were admitted to hospitals after drinking ‘sharbat’ from a makeshift stall on Maha Shivaratri, Salepur police arrested the vendor, Prabhakar Rout on Thursday.
Rout (54) of Telipada under Raisunguda was nabbed from Dhenkanal on Thursday night and brought here where he was produced in a court, police said.During interrogation, the accused confessed that he had been selling ‘sharbat’ on different occasions for the last 30 years. Except an old essence which was from last year’s stock, no other harmful ingredients were used in the ‘sharbat’, police said quoting the accused.
Along with Food Safety Officer Prabhakar Pradhan, police collected samples of the drink, liquids and other materials used for an examination. The samples have been sent to State Forensic Science Laboratory, Bhubaneswar to ascertain the cause of contamination.Meanwhile, Cuttack Municipal Corporation has launched a crack down on ‘sharbat’ stalls in the Millennium City on Friday. A special team comprising City Health Officer, Food Inspector and Health Standing Committee Chairman visited different ‘sharbat’ and ‘lassi’ stalls in the city and advised them to maintain hygiene.
Audit of IITs & AIIMS finds more than a fly in the soup
New Delhi: A Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) third-party food safety audit of campus kitchens at 12 top Central institutions of higher education has found that providing good food to the best brains in the country isn’t apriority for most institutions.
A majority of the institutions have failed to clear the food safety audit.
Common problems, especially for those ranked lower in the audit, include cleaned utensils retaining food residue, rodent droppings around the kitchens, reheating of food several times, kitchen staff wearing shoes in the kitchen that are meant for the outside, choked bathrooms and overflowing sinks where utensils are cleaned.
FSSAI conducted the audits according to their draft food safety and standards (food safety auditing) regulations of 2017 for IIM Ahmedabad; Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore; All India Institutes of Medical Sciences, Delhi; IIT Mumbai; IIT Guwahati; IIM Kozhikode; IIT Delhi; Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Kolkata; IIT Chennai; AIIMS Jodhpur; IIT Roorkee; and IIT Kanpur.
At each institution, all kitchens and canteens were audited. Only most of IIM Ahmedabad’s and IIT Roorkee’s campus kitchens managed to pass the audit. The rest failed.
The auditors assessed the canteens, hostel kitchens, guesthouse kitchens and cafeterias on six parameters — design and facilities, which checks how the cooking area is maintained and whether they have safe food-grade cooking utensils and equipment; control of operations, or how food is actually prepared; maintenance and sanitation; personal hygiene; training and record keeping; and other comments, if any. The maximum score possible was 114, a score less than 77 was considered “noncompliant”.
FSSAI officials told TOI they are at present writing to all 12 institutions with detailed audit reports and grades and asking them to conform to norms as soon as possible.
A summary of the audit results accessed by TOI shows even institutions with relatively better grades were re-using vegetable oil, fungal or mold growth was found in vegetable storage areas, and the dough machines were rusted.
“Personal hygiene is a major issue in nearly all kitchens, so is the lack of understanding of what temperature you should heat food at, when to refrigerate food, and how many times food can be re-heated,” added an official. A premier medical education institute with one of the lowest scores was found to have shoes stored in the kitchen raw material storage area and an overflowing bathroom meant for kitchen staff.
At the other institutions the gaps include food storage areas used by kitchen staff as changing rooms, cockroach and other pest infestations, food and raw materials stored on the floor, drains not netted to prevent rat infestation, no cleaning and sanitation records, and stagnant water near the utensil-cleaning area. Many, it was found, were not FSSAI licensees either.
When contacted about the audit results, FSSAI CEO Pawan Kumar Agarwal said, “The idea is not to name and shame these institutions. We are still communicating the results to them. But they will have to meet the norms. The positive news is that some are coming forward to improve their kitchens.”
Last year, a student found a dead rat in his south Indian thali at an IIT Delhi hostel. In Indore, recently, 15 students of a private engineering college fell ill after allegedly eating food contaminated by a dead lizard.
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