Tobacco products, unsafe food items seized

TO ENSURE BETTER HEALTH:Food Safety officials conducting a raid on shops checking for banned chewing tobacco products and unsafe food items in Ramanathapuram on Tuesday.

Raid conducted to create awareness of checking expiry date

The District Food Safety wing of the Tamil Nadu Food Safety and Drug Administration Department raided shops and seized banned chewing tobacco products and unsafe food items and beverages worth about Rs. 10,000 on Tuesday.

Led by M. Jagadish Chandra Bose, Designated Officer, Food Safety officials raided shops in Aranmanai area here and seized unsafe products, which included locally made soft drinks, packed in plastic tubes, wafers and expired food items.

Mr. Bose, who assumed office here recently, said that the raid was conducted to ensure food safety to the people and create awareness of checking manufacturing and expiry dates of food items before they purchased them.

He said that though the government had banned many tobacco products since 2012 under the Food Safety and Drug Administration Act, many shops were still selling them. The value of the seized tobacco products was Rs. 5,000, he said.

“The drive will continue throughout the district at regular intervals and team raids will be carried out at least once in a week,” he said. There were 13 Food Safety officers in the district and they would visit shops and collect samples of food items in their respective blocks for laboratory tests.

He said that the government had recently renewed the ban on chewing tobacco products for a year since May 23, but the products were available in shops.

The products carried pictorial warning that their use would cause oral cancer but several people were ignorant of the impending danger, he regretted.

Excess colouring in some of the food products and locally made beverages also caused cancer, he warned. All the seized products would be destroyed, he added.