Health Dept collects 41 food samples from hotels, restaurants

Amritsar, December 28

Health Department has collected 41 food samples from various hotels and restaurants on the GT road here in the past two days. The team collected samples of curd, cheese, flour, sauces, samosa, cooked pulses, vegetables and common salt. 

The team inspected Sindhi Vinayk Food Corner, Itraf Dhaba, Jaan Restaurant, Grover Dhaba, Chopra Dhaba, Jumbo Dhaba, Babby Dhaba, Gursharan Dhaba and many other eating places. District Health Officer Dr Shivkaran Singh Kahlon said the team's focus was on dhabas and restaurants on the GT road. 

He said many of the general stores selling food ingredients were also inspected. He said all the samples have been dispatched to Food Testing laboratory and the reports would be received soon. 

Dr Kahlon said it has been found that many hoteliers have still not applied for the licenses or registration under the Food Safety and Standards Act. He said even those whose licenses have expired must get these renewed as the department would soon launch a drive to check unregistered hotels and restaurants. 

Dr Kahlon said the District Health Department has collected over 700 food samples from the district. He said till September this year, over 4,407 samples were collected from the entire state of which 514 were collected from Amritsar alone. 

He said of all the samples collected in the current year, over 300 had failed on quality parameters and department has initiated action against all the shops whose samples were found to be of substandard quality. He said the district department has secured permission from the state authorities in filling court cases against 33 shops whose samples were categorised as unsafe for human consumption by food testing laboratory.