The government has approached the Commissioner of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India to convene a meeting of the Food Safety Commissioners of the southern States to discuss the issue of high pesticide residue in vegetables.
In a written reply to a question by I.C. Balakrishnan, about the steps taken to check the high levels of pesticide residue in vegetables being brought from neighbouring States, Health Minister V.S. Sivakumar said the Chief Minister had convened an emergency meeting to address these concerns.
At present, facilities for checking pesticide residues using Gas Chromatograph and Mass Spectrophotometer were available only at the agricultural university.
Samples
Food safety officers had been asked to collect samples from markets and to send them to the university. Action would be taken if the pesticide levels were found to be high, he said. Tender process was on to set up this testing facility at the laboratories of the food safety wing in Thiruvananthapuram and Ernakulam, Mr. Sivakumar added.
Post-mortems
In reply to another question by N.A. Nellikkunnu, Mr. Sivakumar said that the government had issued orders allowing post-mortems to be held in the evenings too and that the process of creating physical infrastructure in hospitals to allow this was in the final phase. He said a recommendation to create additional posts in all five medical college hospitals to allow post-mortems in the evenings was under consideration.
In a written reply to a question by I.C. Balakrishnan, about the steps taken to check the high levels of pesticide residue in vegetables being brought from neighbouring States, Health Minister V.S. Sivakumar said the Chief Minister had convened an emergency meeting to address these concerns.
At present, facilities for checking pesticide residues using Gas Chromatograph and Mass Spectrophotometer were available only at the agricultural university.
Samples
Food safety officers had been asked to collect samples from markets and to send them to the university. Action would be taken if the pesticide levels were found to be high, he said. Tender process was on to set up this testing facility at the laboratories of the food safety wing in Thiruvananthapuram and Ernakulam, Mr. Sivakumar added.
Post-mortems
In reply to another question by N.A. Nellikkunnu, Mr. Sivakumar said that the government had issued orders allowing post-mortems to be held in the evenings too and that the process of creating physical infrastructure in hospitals to allow this was in the final phase. He said a recommendation to create additional posts in all five medical college hospitals to allow post-mortems in the evenings was under consideration.
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