Ensure food safety

Published: Mon, 14 January 2013 09:09 PM

The Srinagar Municipal Corporation has announced to take food samples on a daily basis for testing. The announcement was made after this newspaper reported the lax attitude of the authorities regarding the safety and hygiene checks of milk consumed by Valleyites. As per the report, random checks undertaken by the authorities have shown milk and food items, particularly oil and vegetables, as highly contaminated and adulterated, even containing harmful elements. A survey by the FSSAI in 2012 had also revealed that 83 per cent of milk consumed in Jammu and Kashmir is adulterated. It goes without saying that higher level of adulteration and contamination can have adverse effects on people’s health.
It is a responsibility of the government to ensure that food items are safe, and enforce food safety laws for the wellbeing of the citizens. But so far the authorities have failed to do so. Despite clear orders for the implementation of stringent Food Safety Standards Act 2006-11, a deliberate confusion has been created due to bickering between two departments hampering the action against the violators of food safety norms.

 

The government must take strong steps to check adulteration and contamination of food by ensuring the implementation of the FSSA 2006-11 in letter and spirit. Besides, there is a need to upgrade the existing infrastructure with more laboratories and other testing equipments in the state

There are not many takers for SMC Commissioner’s announcement for routine checks as people point towards the lack of requisite infrastructure. A single food-testing laboratory cannot cater to whole Kashmir valley adequately. It is not even sufficient for more than one million population of the Srinagar city. What about other towns and villages of the valley?
If the officials claim that routine checks and testing is going on at some places, one is at a loss to understand why not even a single case of contamination or adulteration is brought to surface. People would hardly believe that the Drug and Food Control Department are doing all this silently when it is usually given to the habit of publicizing even a small violation of misbranding and wrong printing on a candy wrapper with mention of the fine imposed besides other details?
The government needs to take strong steps to check adulteration and contamination of food and milk by ensuring the implementation of the FSSA 2006-11 in letter and spirit. Besides, there is need to upgrade the existing infrastructure with more laboratories and other testing equipments in the state. Unfortunately, in the past, it has been seen that any official who is ready to take action against violators has been punished instead of being rewarded, all due to the nexus between market players and politicians. Dangerous consequences await us if this continues.