DINAMALAR NEWS

DINAMALAR NEWS

Manpower shortage cripples functioning of food safety dept

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Manpower shortage is seriously affecting the functioning of food safety department. The number of food safety officers will shrink to 43 from the current 55 with the retirement of 12 officers in May. The department, which is already crippled by manpower shortage, is to face severe crisis in the coming days.

As per norms, each constituency must have a food safety officer. According to sources in the department of food safety, a single food safety officer has to look after more than three constituencies, which is impractical. "We get a call from Aruvikkara while handling an issue in Thiruvananthapuram. In such cases, it would be difficult to reach places on time. Activities such as collection of samples are affected because of the shortage," said a food safety official.

The toll free number of food safety department 1800 425 1125 FREE gets around 40 calls a day. However, the department is not able to respond to even five calls a day. "We don't have the required number of vehicles to reach places for inquiry. The department only has 12 vehicles," the official said.

As many as 156 posts are lying vacant in the department. This was reported to PSC almost a year ago. However, there was no positive response on the issue.

The food safety department was formed in 2008 to implement Food Safety and Standards Act 2006. The prevention of food adulteration wing and analytical laboratories under the control of the director of health services were transferred to the control of the commissioner of food safety then.

Initially, the department was active with frequent inspection of hotels and food business establishments. Now, in addition to manpower shortage, fund crunch too has affected the operations of the department.

"The budget allocation for enforcement activities has been cut short to Rs 2.50 crore in this budget. This is going to affect the functioning of the department," the official said.

Drive to check water quality in eateries

KOZHIKODE: The food safety officials are set to carry out week-long inspections across the state to check the use of impure drinking water for preparing food and juices. The move is to put an end to the use of unhygienic water in eateries. 

A special food safety squad from one district will carry out inspection in a neighbouring district to avoid allegations of corruption. 

"Quality of water used for preparing food, the water resources used by hotels and juice parlours and roadside eateries will be inspected," said an official with food safety department who did not want to be identified. The attempt is to prevent jaundice and other diseases during summer, he said adding that the date of the drive could not be divulged as it would affect the result of the inspections. 

The use of unhygienic drinking water for preparing ice and juice is common in summer, owing to the shortage of pure drinking water. 

Many organizations and consumer groups have also come up with the demand for regular inspections at juice parlours, hotels and roadside vendors to ensure the quality of drinking water they use. Besides, videos and photographs on the use of chemical for ripening, sweetening and adding texture to fruits is also a cause of concern to consumers. The seizure of 1,000kg artificially ripened mangoes and 150kg calcium carbonate from Kannur had caused much panic. 

In the backdrop of the incident in Kannur and taking into account the general trend of using chemicals for artificially ripening fruits, especially mangos, we have appointed persons to keep regular tab on warehouses were these fruits are stored in the district, said an official. The support of traders and residents near these warehouses are also sought to detect the use of chemicals. 

"As it is not easily possible to detect the presence of chemical by testing ripe fruits, measures are taken to prevent its use," said the official. Guarding the warehouses, frequent inspections and checking whenever a new load of fruit reaches the district has created awareness among the traders, the official said adding that they had not detected the use of chemical for ripening in Kozhikode so far . 

Inspections to check adulteration of grains and milk will also be carried out ahead of Vishu.

Artificial Ripening of Mangoes Banned

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Food Safety Commissioner has issued a notification prohibiting the artificial ripening of mangoes using Calcium Carbide or other chemicals across the state.

The prohibition of selling, stocking, displaying or transporting artificially ripened mangoes from other states is as per Food Safety Standard Regulation 2.3.5 and Food Safety Standard Act Section 30.

Police, Excise and Motor Vehicles Departments have been instructed to do thorough checking of vehicles carrying mangoes from other states to ensure that chemicals like Calcium carbide have not been used.

The office of the Food Safety Commission has asked the public to be alert about the artificial ripening of fruits.

Apart from mangoes, Calcium carbide is used on several other fruits, including pineapple, apple, orange and lemon.

The public can contact the toll-free number 1800-425-1125 or call any of the following numbers (see table) to inform the authorities of any violation they come across.

Contact Numbers

T’Puram : 8943346181

Kollam : 8943346182

P’Thitta : 8943346183

Alappuzha : 8943346184

Kottayam : 8943346185

Idukki : 8943346186

Ernakulam : 8943346187

Thrissur : 8943346188

Palakkad : 8943346189

Malappuram : 8943346190

Kozhikode : 8943346191

Wayanad : 8943346192

Kannur : 8943346193

WATCH YOUR PLATE!

Due to lack of food safety, water or food-borne diseases are becoming new-age epidemics across the globe

Widespread prevalence of hunger and starvation in many parts of the world made the discourse on food security focussed to provisioning of minimum calorie intake for survival, without adequate consideration of the issues of either nutritional value or safety of food. The UN Millennium Development Goal targeted ‘to halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger’. According to the MDG report card of 2014 the proportion of underfed people has decreased from 24 per cent in 1990-92 to 14 per cent in 2011-13 and therefore, the target should almost be achieved before the world leaders gather this September in New York to adopt the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Fourteen per cent of the 7.2 billion global population is still a formidable number, mostly concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia, where basic food security remains an unfinished agenda. The fact that the agenda is high on priority is reflected in the enactment of laws making food an entitlement such as India’s National Food Security Act of 2013, and in the continuing efforts of international humanitarian agencies, spearheaded by the World Food Programme. These endeavours may ensure that the saga of starvation of human beings on planet earth may well be overcome during the course of next decade or less. It may resurface unless food production keeps pace with growth of population, which would be another challenge, considering the slowing down of agricultural growth in many countries and the spectre of climate change haunting agriculture in tropical areas.

Food security that has been achieved for almost 90 per cent of people cannot be sustained unless it is ensured that the foods they consume are sufficient, nutritious and safe. Increasing intensification and industrialisation of agricultural and animal production, globalisation of food processing and supply chains, and changing food habits of people — particularly in growing urban areas — are creating new challenges in production, supply and consumption of food that may have serious impacts on food safety.

Bottlenecks

First, on the production side increasing use of genetically modified seeds, chemical fertilisers, pesticides, animal and poultry feeds are causing concerns on which opinions are sharply divided, but there are no differences of opinion on unsafe food processing, storage, packaging, transportation et al which raise serious issues of food safety that remain unaddressed in many parts of the world. According to World Health Organisation, unsafe food containing harmful bacteria, viruses, parasites, prions or chemical substances like toxins, organic pollutants and heavy metals may cause more than 200 different types of diseases — ranging from diarrhoea to cancers. Preliminary estimates of currently ongoing global burden of food-borne diseases indicate there are well over five billion episodes of diarrhoea morbidity alone every year, of which over two million people do not survive, which include many children.

On the supply side, food is one of the fastest growing global supply chains that link producers from the remotest corners to markets around the world. While this offers enormous opportunities for the growth of food processing industries and higher returns for the primary growers, inadequate infrastructure for storage, handling, packaging and transportation and absence of well-developed regulatory regimes come with inherent dangers of creating layers of risks and of transmitting the risks far beyond the farmland or factory gates. There are many examples when local incidents quickly evolved into international emergencies due to the speed and range of product distribution. Some of these recent examples include the contamination of infant formula with melamine in China that affected 3,00,000 infants in 2008 and the 2011 Escherichia coli outbreak in Germany linked to contaminated fenugreek sprouts in Europe and North America, which caused US $1.3 billion in losses, for farmers and industries, and US $236 million in emergency aid payments to 22 European Union member states.

Safe food production and supply may not necessarily ensure food safety unless the foods that are finally consumed in homes, community feasts, eateries or on the streets are safe. It is estimated that nearly 30 per cent of food-borne diseases originate on the consumption side that can be easily prevented with better education, awareness and enforcement but these apparently simple tasks become difficult in countries afflicted with poverty, illiteracy and poor governance.

Law and disorder

Food safety in India has not engaged the kind of attention it should have. The integration of multiplicity of laws and regulations like Prevention of Food Adulteration Act 1954, Fruit Products Order 1955, Meat Food Products Order 1973, Vegetable Oil Products (Control) Order 1947, Milk and Milk Products Order 1992 et al into Food Safety and Standards Act 2006 and establishment of a single reference point in the Food Safety and Standards Authorities at national and state levels held the promises of food safety, but the promises are far from being translated into actions on the ground. Food adulteration and widespread contamination are creating continuing risks of food-borne diseases that pose one of the gravest risks to public health.

Surely, food safety is a critical issue of public health, but the issues are much larger than just health — it involves multiple sectors like agriculture, animal husbandry, food processing and marketing, consumer affairs et al. This calls for an integrated approach involving multiple stakeholders that are concerned with all these sectors, which is woefully lacking.