The food safety wing will intensify inspections across the State to regulate and restrict the use of food additives, colours, and flavouring agents as part of the initiative Operation Ruchi, Health Minister V.S. Sivakumar said while chairing a meeting of Food Safety officials here on Wednesday .
As part of Operation Ruchi, junk or fast food, packed food products, ready-to-eat food, edible oils, milk and packaged drinking water will all be brought under the scanner and checked for quality as well as the presence of food additives or other harmful chemical ingredients. Vegetables and fruits will also be sampled for the presence of excessive levels of insecticides. Inspections will be carried out in vegetable stalls, bakeries, restaurants and supermarkets.
Coordination meeting
An inter-State coordination meeting chaired by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy on the issue of checking the excessive amounts of pesticides used in vegetables and fruits brought in to the State from other neighbouring States will be held here on July 21.
Regular inspections are being held to monitor if the levels of pesticides in fruits and vegetables have come down.
The report filed by the State Food Safety officials, who had visited the farmlands in Tamil Nadu on a fact-finding mission to assess the practices of using pesticides, had been presented by the Commissioner of Food Safety before the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India’s Central committee on June 4.
The Central committee, following discussions on the report, had asked the Food Safety Commissioner in Tamil Nadu to report on the steps that had been taken by that State to regulate the use of pesticides in vegetables and fruits.
The details of the meeting are available on the website of the FSSAI. The allegation by CPI leader Binoy Viswam that the State had not presented the facts before the FSSAI was baseless, the meeting pointed out.
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