Imagine the lip smacking Kerala fish curry, cyrian beef fry and of course the porotta nicely plated up. Who can resist not indulging in these?
Even as the menus in hotels look enticing, Keralites have learnt to do so, the hard way. To imagine that the shawarma which killed a young man, was from the same hotel we frequent to have chicken biriyani, gives me shudders.
Perhaps a young man had to pay with his life for an entire department to wake up to the reality of the state of hotels in Kerala. On July 10th, 21-year-old Sachin Mathew, had 3 shawarmas from a hotel in Thiruvananthapuram en route to Bangalore. Four days later his family got to know of his unfortunate death. What followed are the knee jerk raids on hotels across the state by the Food and Safety Department. In the past one-month alone 1000 eateries have been inspected, out of which 60 have been asked to shut shop. This is for not following the minimum standards of basic hygiene and serving stale food..
The States have been asked to complete the registration and licensing process by August 4. In this first year of implementing the Act, the Food Safety [4] and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI ) will focus on getting solid data on the number of persons engaged in food business in the country. Rough estimates say that about 5.5 crore people are engaged in the food business, including street vendors and home-based food sellers. The FBOs [5] have been categorized on the basis of their annual turnover and those with a turnover of Rs. 12 lakh and above will need a license while those below will need to register themselves under the Act.
Even as the menus in hotels look enticing, Keralites have learnt to do so, the hard way. To imagine that the shawarma which killed a young man, was from the same hotel we frequent to have chicken biriyani, gives me shudders.
Perhaps a young man had to pay with his life for an entire department to wake up to the reality of the state of hotels in Kerala. On July 10th, 21-year-old Sachin Mathew, had 3 shawarmas from a hotel in Thiruvananthapuram en route to Bangalore. Four days later his family got to know of his unfortunate death. What followed are the knee jerk raids on hotels across the state by the Food and Safety Department. In the past one-month alone 1000 eateries have been inspected, out of which 60 have been asked to shut shop. This is for not following the minimum standards of basic hygiene and serving stale food..
A Corporation health squad led by Mayor K. Chandrika seized stale food from nine major hotels, including a star hotel, in Thiruvananthapuram in a lightening inspectionThe local media is full of news about hotel raids and the kind of stale food that we are being fed. Uncooked meat, animal waste piled up in the kitchen, stagnant dirty water and cans of reused oil, the list can make you go straight to the toilet and puke. To think that this is only the state of affairs in Kerala will be unwise.
The fact is that across our country there is hardly any surveillance over hotels – big and small. Anybody can start one and serve rotten food. As it was revealed in the raids here, many hotels did not have a proper license or any mandatory certificates from the local body. It is an open secret how corrupt the Food inspectors are. Many of them sit in the comforts of their AC rooms and stamp away approvals, as long as the right amount of money fall into their cabins.The Food and Safety Act, 2006 has stringent provisions, but the Centre notified the rules for enforcement of the legislation only last year. The Prevention of Food Adulteration (PFA) Act was all about adulteration and penalties, but the 2006 Act [3] is the first attempt in the country to engage in standardization process, defining specific standards for each food item.
The States have been asked to complete the registration and licensing process by August 4. In this first year of implementing the Act, the Food Safety [4] and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI ) will focus on getting solid data on the number of persons engaged in food business in the country. Rough estimates say that about 5.5 crore people are engaged in the food business, including street vendors and home-based food sellers. The FBOs [5] have been categorized on the basis of their annual turnover and those with a turnover of Rs. 12 lakh and above will need a license while those below will need to register themselves under the Act.
In case of substandard, misbranded food or misleading advertisements about food products that are not injurious to health will invite a fine of up to Rs 10 lakh. In case of injurious food, the punishment will be imprisonment up to seven years, with a fine of up to Rs 10 lakh. In case of death caused due to adulterated food [6] items, the punishment will range from seven years' imprisonment to life, besides a fine of up to Rs 10 lakh.Like in many other issues in our country it perhaps took the government 65 years to streamline the food industry. Its not the lack of laws, what matters is the will to implement them. Till then, the proof of the pudding is in the eating!
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