Feb 7, 2019
Trains will soon have food inspectors
Indore: Passengers travelling in trains operating via Ratlam division soon won’t need to go the extra mile to raise a complaint over poor quality of food served on board as railways have appointed ‘food inspectors’ to keep a check on it.
These staff will randomly taste food provided to passengers. Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has appointed these staff, who would be called food safety supervisors.
They will be present on board to taste food and also collect feedback from passengers. They will also keep a check on food preparation from time to time.
Fourteen trains of Ratlam division are going to have these food safety supervisors. “Trains like Malwa Express, Kochuveli, Yashwantpur Express, Indore-Guwahati, Kamakhya Express will have supervisors soon. Each train will have at least one supervisor,” said a spokesman with Ratlam division of Western Railway.
“Apart from keeping a check on quality of food, these supervisors appointed by IRCTC, would also check for overcharging. They will also have right to take action in case of overcharging by a vendor by crosschecking bills issued to passengers on purchase of any item from railway vendors,” he added.
Officials said that these supervisors will submit feedback to IRCTC office in Indore. “This initiative has been taken up under new catering policy aimed at improving quality of food served to passengers,” they said, adding that food in trains is now being served by IRCTC.
They also pointed out that passengers often complained about bad quality of food served to them on board. “This will ensure provision of quality and hygienic food to passengers,” they said.
Not just cigarettes, alcohol bottles in India will have a loud and clear warning soon
Liquor bottles in India to soon have a statutory warning
The FSSAI has directed companies to carry a statutory warning of 3 mm for alcoholic beverage bottles of more than 200 ml.
India ranks 5th in the world for the most pictorial warnings on cigarette packets.
Indian government had introduced regulations for alcoholic beverages in 2018.
Next time you pick up a bottle of alcohol, it’s going to be difficult to miss the cautionary message on the bottle.
Following a directive from 2018, FSSAI has revised the statutory warning to be placed on alcohol bottles. After accommodating industry feedback with industry representatives, the FSSAI has directed that for alcoholic beverage bottles upto 200 ml should not be less than 1.5 mm whereas bottles above 200 ml in size, will have to carry the warning message in a font size of 3mm. All companies have to follow the guidelines and transition to the same by April 1, 2019.
In 2018, India’s food regulator, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India, had directed alcohol companies to carry a statutory warning saying “Consumption of Alcohol is injurious to health” and “Be safe - Don’t drink and drive.” It also said the font size should be be less than three millimetres.
India already ranks 5th in the world for the most pictorial warnings on cigarette packets.
The Indian government had introduced regulations for alcoholic beverage bottles for the first time in 2018 to control drunk driving incidents in the country. According to reports, fines from drunk driving in India in 2018 was around ₹6 crore.
Earlier an NGO called Community Against Drunken Driving had filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) requesting the Delhi high court to include a pictorial warning on all alcohol bottles to spread awareness against drunk driving. However, the court had refused the same then, while also directing the FSSAI to look into the matter.
Since 1995, the government has banned advertising of tobacco and liquor to ensure that the wrong message is not sent out the adverse health effects are known to people – which has also led to surrogate advertising in India.
Bottled water woes continue
He alleged the KWA officials have not yet paid the full amount promised during the trial run.
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Aruvikkara Water Bottling plant, mooted by the Kerala Water Authority (KWA) and scheduled to be launched this month, will be further delayed owing to the tussle between the contractor and the KWA authorities. The contractor is not taking interest in submitting the documents to BIS and FSSAI, KWA officials said.
A Noushad, executive engineer of Aruvikkara Water Bottling Plant said the water bottles will be launched as soon as BIS and Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) provides the approval. "Hi-Tech Sweet Water Technologies Pvt. Ltd, Gujarat is responsible for receiving the clearance from BIS and FSSAI.
The contractor is not taking interest in submitting the documents to BIS and FSSAI," Noushad added. Hi-Tech Sweet Water Technologies Pvt. Ltd, the contractor for the project, said they have already forwarded the documents for approval to the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). However, KWA officials deny their claim However, a higher official from Hi-Tech Sweet Water Technologies said the documents required for the BSI was given to them only by the end of January. "We submitted it online as soon as we received the documents," he said.
He alleged the KWA officials have not yet paid the full amount promised during the trial run. "Our company has received only Rs 3.94 crore of Rs 5.5 crore till date," he said. Meanwhile, KWA officials denied the claims by the contractor that the trial run has been conducted. "A test run was held in the absence of electricity in a diesel-operated-engine.
That cannot be considered as a trial run," he said.
Speaking on the due amount to be paid, KWA officials said they plan to pay Rs 1 crore after the commissioning of the project, while the remaining 50 lakhs will be given after three years of warranty period."The official inauguration of the plant will probably be held before Lok Sabha elections but the launch of the plant will be delayed till we receive the clearance from BIS and FSSAI," said Noushad.
Aruvikkara project
So far, the government has spent Rs 13.4 crore on the project. The bottling plant is designed to produce 7,500 litres of water per hour.
Kerala Water Supply and Sewerage Act were amended for the project in 2008.
The foundation stone was laid in June 2010 by former Water Resources Minister N K Premachandran. It was initially delayed due to non-participation of bidders for tender. Comptroller and Auditor General of India Report in 2013 criticised KWA for the delay in implementation of the project.
It was revived in 2015 after it floated the tender in three packages - civil, electrical and mechanical.
The work resumed in 2016. Water Resource Minister K Krishnankutty promised the project will be launched soon. Again, the minister reiterated the project will be launched in March.
Recently, difference of opinion has arisen among the contractor and the KWA officials regarding procedural clearance from the BIS and FSSAI.
19 students had worm-infested soya chunks, proves test
A day later, all the 19 students were discharged on Wednesday afternoon.
MADURAI: A day after 19 school students were admitted to Government Rajaji Hospital (GRH) due to food poisoning, officials of the department of Food Safety said that laboratory tests confirmed that worm-infested stale soya chunks were used in the mid-day meal that were served to the students.
On Tuesday, 34 students of CSI Primary School (government-aided) in Velliankundram village near Kallandhiri were taken to Primary Health Centre in Kallandhiri when they complained of stomach ache, dizziness and vomiting after taking meal at school.
The students said they had found small white worms and tiny insects in the fried soya chunks (meal maker) and by the time, some of them had already finished eating. 19 students – 12 girls and 7 boys – were referred to GRH. Their condition is said to be stable.
A day later, all the 19 students were discharged on Wednesday afternoon.
FDA skirts RTI plea on food delivery operators under scanner for flouting hygiene norms
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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