AHMEDABAD: The Gujarati foodie with an elephantine appetite needs to know how much calories one shoves in with that lip- smacking, enticing and chatpata street food, becoming fast consumables these days. Equally important is to find out the nutritional value of the barrage of locally packaged food.
The city for this purpose will have the state's first food safety tribunal which will not only provide teeth to food safety inspectors to keep quality checks on food sold in the city but also nail defaulters who make false claims about nutritional value of their products. The tribunal will be set up within the next two months.
The tribunal will look into cases where defaulters are caught selling food not of the nature or substance or quality as was demanded. It will also hear cases of substandard and misbranded food and misleading advertisements. "Food containing adulterants, unsanitary processing or manufacturing of food, offences by companies and compensation in case of injury or death of consumer among others are few of the cases that the tribunal will look into. We are integrating the municipal health machinery into the system," said the food & drugs control administration commissioner H G Koshia.
The state government has already approved the post of a presiding officer, chaired by a retired district judge and six other posts. The tribunal has become mandatory with the Food Safety and Standards Rules, 2011 being implemented. Food safety inspectors are being trained by Food Safety Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) officers with short-term chemical tests that can reveal adulterants in food instantaneously. Food inspectors of municipal corporations and the food and drugs department are part of this exercise.
"Working of the tribunal will not clash with consumer courts as they deal with special issues. The tribunal is purely for enforcement purposes and an appellate body for those who have been penalized by our officers," Koshia added.
The city for this purpose will have the state's first food safety tribunal which will not only provide teeth to food safety inspectors to keep quality checks on food sold in the city but also nail defaulters who make false claims about nutritional value of their products. The tribunal will be set up within the next two months.
The tribunal will look into cases where defaulters are caught selling food not of the nature or substance or quality as was demanded. It will also hear cases of substandard and misbranded food and misleading advertisements. "Food containing adulterants, unsanitary processing or manufacturing of food, offences by companies and compensation in case of injury or death of consumer among others are few of the cases that the tribunal will look into. We are integrating the municipal health machinery into the system," said the food & drugs control administration commissioner H G Koshia.
The state government has already approved the post of a presiding officer, chaired by a retired district judge and six other posts. The tribunal has become mandatory with the Food Safety and Standards Rules, 2011 being implemented. Food safety inspectors are being trained by Food Safety Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) officers with short-term chemical tests that can reveal adulterants in food instantaneously. Food inspectors of municipal corporations and the food and drugs department are part of this exercise.
"Working of the tribunal will not clash with consumer courts as they deal with special issues. The tribunal is purely for enforcement purposes and an appellate body for those who have been penalized by our officers," Koshia added.
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