COIMBATORE: The recent nationwide controversy over "excess" levels of MSG (monosodium glutamate) in Maggi instant noodles has not managed to stop the food safety regulator from again extending the deadline for food operators to obtain a license to run their business.
The biggest flipside of these continuous deadline extensions is the fact that food safety officers now do not have the right to ask restaurants to improve their kitchens. Thus people are always at the risk of consuming unhygienic food.
A food safety officer based in the headquarters in Coimbatore says they now do not have enough legal standing to take action against unhygienic practices in eateries. "When any of them apply for a license or registration, we thoroughly inspect their kitchen, vessels and raw material cleaning facilities, garbage disposal methods, fumigation practices, presence of insects and pests, the water source and filtration facilities available," he said.
"We also tell them how to improve hygiene. Only if all the above factors are compliant with our rules and regulations, and their food is found to be hygienic, do we enrol them," said an R S Puram-based food safety officer. "During the extension period we can't randomly check restaurants and pull them up for not applying or renewing their licenses or registrations," he added. "Thus we can't prevent the issue before it happens."
Statistics with the food safety department in Coimbatore shows that hardly one-fourth of the city's restaurants and eateries are compliant with the norms and rules mentioned in the Food Safety and Standards Act of India, 2006. Hardly 5,400 of the estimated 20,000 restaurant, bakeries and eateries in the city have enrolled with the food safety department. "Around 3,252 of them have license and 2,132 have registered themselves after paying a fee," said designated food safety officer, Dr R Kathiravan.
"We do not even have an exact count of the food operators in the city, because now anyone can bring a pushcart or kiosk on the road and sell food. We can't pull him up, unless his prepared food sample has tested unsafe or we have written complaint against him," he said.
In fact even during the three days between the previous deadline's expiry and new deadline announcement, not a single restaurant or eatery owners approached the food safety department for a license, said Kathiravan.
Food safety officers blame the laidback attitude of food operators on the number of deadline extensions given to traders since the Food Safety and Standards Act of India came into force in 2006. "The deadline has already been extended five times, so restaurateurs do not take this seriously," he said. "This is the sixth time the deadline has been extended," he said. Section 31 (1) of Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 provides that no person shall commence or carry on any food business except under a license.
While bigger restaurants, bakeries and food chains apply for licenses, small road side eateries, coffee and tea shops apply for registrations.
No comments:
Post a Comment