Turf war between Health and Food Safety departments rages

Tiff over whether Health Departmenthas the mandate to inspect and raid hotels

Lack of State-level coordination between Food Safety and the Health departments is hampering food safety drive.

While the Food Safety and the Health departments continue to haggle about the jurisdiction of work on raids conducted in hotels and restaurants, the government is still to come clear on a grave issue concerning public health.

M.M. Abbas, public health activist, told The Hindu that the spat was in the open because there was no State-level coordination. Only if there was a directive to both the departments, the district administration could coordinate their functioning.

The Health department, endowed with a strong strength of personnel at the grassroots level, could either be redeployed or trained by the Food Safety Department. The skeletal strength of Food Safety Department was inadequate, said Mr. Abbas.

Senior Food Safety Officials told The Hindu that the raids were conducted in violation of the Health Department directive. However, an official indicated that the issue would have come up if the Health had informed the Food Safety department and sought their cooperation too in the raids. It would save the Health department of any legal hurdle, the official said.

However, the Health department officials justify the raids as being part of the Safe Kerala Clean Kerala campaign.

Hotels are inspected to see if they maintain a clean and hygienic environment while serving food to customers, said P. N. Sreenivasan, district health officer (rural). “We do not have the mandate to test the quality of food,” he said. However, what can be detected by naked eye, like fungus on food or worm-infested foods is destroyed, he said. Legally, the Health Department might not find a firm footing int the courts, said Mr. Abbas.

While the hotels and restaurant owners are crying foul about the Health Department not having a mandate to inspect hotels, Mr. Sreenivasan believes that there is no legal hurdle in inspecting a hotel premises if it is creating circumstances that could spread diseases. In case of any large-scale food poisoning or breakout of water-borne diseases like typhoid or hepatitis A, it is the Health department that is held responsible, argued Mr. Sreenivasan.

Justifying the actions carried out by the Health Department for the last three years, he said it had definitely helped bring down water-borne diseases.

Compared to the numbers three years ago, incidents of typhoid and hepatitis A have come down drastically from 182 typhoid cases reported in 2011 to 8 cases so far this year, and from 274 hepatitis A in 2011 to 14 so far this year.

Mr. Sreenivasan says the nearly 400-strong team of health inspectors, supervisors and technical assistants available at the grassroots level are being deployed to ensure that food and water that people consume in homes and outside homes does not spread communicable diseases.

On a regular basis Health inspectors across the rural area take part in chlorination activity of wells and other water resources on the seventh day of the month and inspect hotels every 15th day of the month, said Mr. Sreenivasan.