Ration card holders who normally complain of poor quality of food grains procured from Public Distribution System dealers might see better days soon because the PDS dealers and Regional Food Controller (RFC) officials have been directed to procure licence from the Department of Food Safety under Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 and rules and regulation 2011. “Under this Act, licences are issued to those food manufacturer/processor or handler who maintain hygienic environment in the storage area. Apart from this, they will have to submit an affidavit on the maintenance of quality of the food items,” said Dehradun district Food Safety designated officer Anoj Kumar Thapliyal on Friday.
Thapliyal further said that this Act is enforced on all food business undertakings- profit, non-profit, public and private- carrying out any of the activities related to any stage of manufacture, processing, packaging, storage, import, sale, transportation and distribution of food.
Many food manufacturing units including hotels, canteens of various educational institutions in the district have procured license from the department. The department has issued 3, 000 licenses to the business operators whose annual turnover is more than Rs12 lakh and around 5,500 shopkeepers whose annual turnover is less than Rs 12 lakh. He said that the department officials are deployed to periodically inspect various manufacturing units to check the purity of items prepared there. The officials monitor preparation techniques and also keep a close watch on hygiene and precautions maintained by the manufacturers.
Samples of food items are sent to Food and Drug Testing Laboratory, Rudrapur for checking purity. Penalty is imposed on food business operators found manufacturing any food article without meeting standards established under Act, he added.Thapliyal further said that department officials had collected large number of samples of food items from restaurants, dairy, shops and other manufacturing units in the district in the last two years and around 80 samples were found to be unsafe or sub-standard, misbranded or containing extraneous matter with some of the cases pending in the ADM court. The department has collected revenue of Rs19 lakh in the form of penalty on 25 manufacturing units in the last two years. Roorkee based M Milk Company was fined maximum penalty of Rs4.5 lakh for failing to meet standards. Department imposes penalty ranging from Rs500 to Rs4.5 lakh depending upon nature of the violation, he added.
Thapliyal further said that this Act is enforced on all food business undertakings- profit, non-profit, public and private- carrying out any of the activities related to any stage of manufacture, processing, packaging, storage, import, sale, transportation and distribution of food.
Many food manufacturing units including hotels, canteens of various educational institutions in the district have procured license from the department. The department has issued 3, 000 licenses to the business operators whose annual turnover is more than Rs12 lakh and around 5,500 shopkeepers whose annual turnover is less than Rs 12 lakh. He said that the department officials are deployed to periodically inspect various manufacturing units to check the purity of items prepared there. The officials monitor preparation techniques and also keep a close watch on hygiene and precautions maintained by the manufacturers.
Samples of food items are sent to Food and Drug Testing Laboratory, Rudrapur for checking purity. Penalty is imposed on food business operators found manufacturing any food article without meeting standards established under Act, he added.Thapliyal further said that department officials had collected large number of samples of food items from restaurants, dairy, shops and other manufacturing units in the district in the last two years and around 80 samples were found to be unsafe or sub-standard, misbranded or containing extraneous matter with some of the cases pending in the ADM court. The department has collected revenue of Rs19 lakh in the form of penalty on 25 manufacturing units in the last two years. Roorkee based M Milk Company was fined maximum penalty of Rs4.5 lakh for failing to meet standards. Department imposes penalty ranging from Rs500 to Rs4.5 lakh depending upon nature of the violation, he added.
No comments:
Post a Comment