Ahead of Holi, the Gautam Budh Nagar food and safety department has made three teams to inspect snacks and milk products in the district. From February 24, officials will start focusing on shops and stores selling milk products and snacks.
“We have made three teams which will focus on snacks and milk products being sold at various sweet shops and food outlets. We have been receiving a lot of complaints regarding the quality of paneer being used by restaurants and food outlets in the district. Ahead of Holi, we will focus on the quality of milk products to ensure the safety of consumers,” Sanjay Sharma, food safety officer, Gautam Budh Nagar, said. “The temperature has started increasing following which the chances of milk products getting spoiled increases.”
“Each team that will conduct inspections will have three food safety officers (FSO),” Sharma added.
Between April 2019 and January 2020, the food department officials collected and tested over 440 samples. The results of around 380 samples have come, out of which 156 samples did not pass the quality tests. According to the officials, most of the failed 156 samples are milk products.
Officials can file a case against the persons from whose outlets the sub-standard samples were collected in the additional chief judicial magistrate’s court after taking sanction from the commissioner of the state food safety department in Lucknow. The defaulters can be imposed a penalty and even imprisoned from one to six years by the ACJM court.
For the last 20 days, officials have been focusing on canteens and restaurants in the district and have conducted around 150 inspections until now. From February 24 to March 10, officials will be inspecting sweet shops and restaurants which are visited by many people during festivals.
“In the coming three weeks, we will mostly be checking sweets and snacks in the district. We have collected several samples in the last 20 days and found many sub-standard food milk products,” Sharma said.
On January 1, the state government had ordered that every FSO in the district needs to conduct at least 40 inspections a month. There are nine FSOs in the district and as per the new orders, they will need to conduct at least 360 total inspections in a month.
The order has also said that all the details of every inspection and the suggestions made for improvement to owners of food outlets should be documented in a report. The detailed report should be submitted to the senior officials concerned within three working days.
In January, officials had conducted more than 349 inspections and served 28 notices to various restaurants, canteens, manufacturing units among others.
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