FDA gets permanent home at Bambolim

PANAJI: After shunting its offices through four different premises in the 40-odd years of its existence, Goa's directorate of food and drug administration (FDA) has finally found its permanent home in its sprawling campus at Bambolim.

Showing off the two-storey laterite stone structure inaugurated on Tuesday, FDA director Salim Veljee said that the design was highly public-friendly, with all public interface restricted to the single large hall in the entrance. "This will be FDA's single facility across Goa, and will be adequate in all aspects, for a minimum of 20 years. We are modernizing all our operations, and becoming completely computer-savvy," said Veljee.

The new office is a far cry from the FDA's ramshackle premises in Altinho, and comes with modern storage facilities for drugs and food items. "Earlier, we faced plenty of problems due to lack of space. Seized food items were often attacked by rats - a disaster as we are supposed to produce them in court in the same condition. We did not have proper climate-controlled storage for drug samples. All these problems have now been solved," he pointed out. The facility has separate storage areas for food items and medicines and a refrigerated unit for perishable goods - all under constant CCTV surveillance to prevent tampering. A library, a 'role-model' kitchen and canteen and large, airy offices complete the picture.

"Now that we have a state of the art conference room, we are planning to have regular training sessions and educational workshops for all food vendors and drug providers. With constant education and monitoring, we hope to set high standards of cleanliness and quality for our street food vendors," he added. The FDA is in the process of recruiting eight new food safety officers and four new drug regulators.

The adjacent laboratory building, which has been located at Bambolim since 2007, will also be upgraded shortly. "We have now started collecting samples of fruits and vegetables, which are sent to a lab in Mysore for pesticide traces and wax coating. Our laboratory will shortly install the sophisticated equipment necessary to do these tests," Veljee said, adding that they already comply with the 14-day turnaround time for every test report.

The FDA is shifting to its new premises over the weekend, and will not function on Friday.