It may be recalled that the Food & Drugs Administration (FDA) had recently raided the popular online food delivery services, namely, Swiggy, Foodpanda, Zomato & Uber Eats in Mumbai and Pune. These raids had revealed that 112 outlets of these fashionable companies in Mumbai and over 400 in Pune procured food for their customers from dingy cooking units that possessed no licence, showed utter neglect of food safety and food hygiene norms and conducted no health checkups of those who cooked and served the food.
Information about these raids should have been put up on the FDA website suo motu under Section 4 of the RTI Act, as it is now a public concern since takeaway food has become trendy and popular with large sections of the population. Instead, crucial information has been denied to the RTI application filed by this writer on 10 January 2019. (Track FDA Raids on Eateries by Filing RTI)
The public information officer (PIO) KN Dabhade, has only given partial information and has denied crucial information such as the names of the outlets which violated all norms of health and safety; photographic and video evidence of the raids; the proposal for further action against Swiggy, Foodpanda, Zomato and Uber Eats. He has pushed the responsibility over to the additional commissioner, FDA, to reply to these important requests in his reply dated 19th January.
He has only provided me with a copy of the directive sent by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), the central authority which governs the FDAs of all States and Union Territories. The copy of this crucial letter clearly states that FDAs of all States including Maharashtra had been asked to give a report by 31 December 2018, on the action they have taken against erring outlets from where these fashionable online food service companies procure food but this information has not been given to me, despite the request in my RTI application.
To further elaborate, the PIO has refused to give the following information that I had requested in my RTI application:
Copies of all reports of raids conducted on 350 or more outlets of online food service Apps – Zomato, Swiggy, Uber Eats, Foodpanda and any other
Copies of photographs and videos taken of the kitchen, toilets and any other that may have been clicked or shot, during the above raids
A list of all the outlets that were raided along with their addresses
Copies of correspondence of the authorities of Zomato, Swiggy, Uber Eats, Foodpanda and any other with your office, in this matter
Copies of the proposal for further action/action taken against Zomato, Swiggy, Uber Eats, Foodpanda and any others for being responsible for putting their customers’ health at a risk
The PIO has only provided me with a copy of the proposal and the decision to conduct raids on Zomato, Swiggy, Uber Eats, Foodpanda and any other. The letter by the joint director states:
“FSSAI has launched a drive against hotels/restaurants without FSSAI licence/registration listed by leading food aggregations such as Zomato, Swiggy, Foodpanda, Uber Eats etc on their platforms. As a result, these e-commerce food business operators (FBOs) had delisted 10,500 non-compliant hotels/restaurants from their platforms. States/UTs were asked to take appropriate action against non-compliant FBOs as per the FSS Act 2006, rules and regulations made thereunder. States/UTs were also advised to conduct a special drive in this regard and ensure that such FBOs have the registration, state license or central license strictly as per their eligibility and thereupon to submit an action taken report to this office by 31December 2018.’’ – signed Praveen Jarga, joint director (this letter was addressed to the commissioners of food safety of all States/Union Territories.
That transparency is most vital for this issue, reflects in the information given by Dr Pallavi Darade, FDA commissioner, Maharashtra, to Moneylife in an interview with her. (FDA Chief Seeks Consumer Audit for Zomato, Swiggy, Foodpanda and Uber Eats) She had categorically stated therein that:
though it was promised that food had been delivered from this or that outlet, many a time it was found that the food was actually delivered from the dhaba right next to the customer’s house, or from a very small outlet and at times even from homemade kitchens where facilities were inadequate;
there was no pest control; kitchens were dirty;
the water in which the food needs to be cooked was not potable and was never tested for safety;
sometimes toilets were very close to the kitchens and medical check-up of people who were serving the food under these extremely unhygienic conditions was never done;
sometimes dirty clothing was lying around;
sometimes the storerooms where raw material was kept was not hygienic.
Pending a reply from the additional commissioner, I propose to follow up with my First Appeal.
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