Address food safety issue

Adulteration and contamination of food items is a constant danger which the public faces because of various reasons. Food adulteration, one would presume, goes a long time back in history, maybe right from the time man started trading in food items. Some food items like lentils, rice, flour, spices has always been susceptible to adulteration since the adulterants readily and almost imperceptibly mixes with the food items. How often have we felt the crunching bite of a miniscule bit of a pebble while relishing a dish of dal. These days of course, food industry is big business, besides the staple food, all sorts of edible items is available which cater to every section, age groups and for special categories of people like diabetic patients.

Many of these food items come packaged and certified by competent authority as meeting certain standard so as to be fit for consumption. Despite mechanism being put in place, unscrupulous individuals and companies dealing with food items continue to find ways to adulterate our food in a bid to maximise profit at the expense of the public health. In fact, adulterations have become much more sophisticated , much more difficult to detect with our sensory organs and much more harmful to the health of the consumers. The suspected food items need to be tested in advanced food testing laboratories to find out the exact nature of adulterants or contaminants present.

To safeguard the health of the consuming public it is important to set up stringent regulatory and monitoring mechanism of the varied food items, manufactured by scores of companies which are available in the market. Towards this end the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 was passed and under which the Food Safety Authority of India (FSSAI) was established to lay down science based standards for food items encompassing manufacturing, processing, distribution, sale and import so as to ensure safe and wholesome food for human consumption.

State Food Safety Authorities for the states under the Health & Family Welfare Department were also established to enforce the various provisions of the Act. Despite the existence of laws to deal with food adulteration and contamination as also the agency to enforce this law, there is isn’t much emphasis on ensuring food safety norms in the state. This is compounded by the fact that the public in the state is not much aware about food safety norms and consequently, is not much concerned about this aspect when they buy food items. Then there are these huge number of food items which are coming in from Myanmar who’s standard in terms of fitness for human consumption can at best be a matter of conjecture.

There is a need for a mechanism to standardise these food items as per the Food Safety and Standard norms and in the event of failure to do so prohibit its sale in the state. The Food Safety authority in the state needs to be much more proactive, in terms of spreading awareness, monitoring food items sold in the market, take appropriate action in case of adulteration and contamination.

Recently,the deputy Commissioner of Food Safety announced that ‘Apline’ bottled mineral water manufactured by NE Water Solution and Beverages was found contaminated, but days after the declaration ‘Alpine’ bottles were found selling at many stores. Why is this brand of mineral bottled water still available in the market, fully knowing the health risk to the consumers? The Commissioner of Food Safety needs to come up with a convincing answer.

We would not like to see any compromise or lackadaisical when it comes to the health of people.