Asian Athletics Championships: Inspectors to check athletes' food

BHUBANESWAR: To provide safe and healthy food to more than 1,000 delegates and athletes who will come to the Smart City for Asian Athletics Championships, the state government has decided to deploy food safety officers and supervisors.

Following the government's direction, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has assigned six food safety officers and equal number of supervising officers to inspect the cooked and packaged foods.

The food inspectors will take samples of food from hotels, shopping malls, fast food joints, fruits and vegetable vendors and cooked food for athletes at Kalinga Stadium. A dedicated officer will be deployed at Kalinga Stadium to take sample of the food prepared during the meet. Other officers have been assigned zones to inspect food at hotels and guest houses where the athletes will be put up apart from taking random samples of food from street joints and other eateries.

The food safety supervisors include the enforcement officer of Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA), three deputy commissioners of Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation, a deputy food commissioner and a deputy secretary of the home department. "Mobile squads will be formed to check the quality of food. The officers will report their joining from July 1. They will submit the inspection report on a daily basis to supervising officers and food safety commissioner," said an officer of BMC.

The food samples will be taken for test to the laboratory of public health and engineering organization. The tourism department had run an awareness campaign among the hoteliers regarding serving of quality food to the foreign delegates. A Whatsapp group has been created among the assigned officers to share information among them regarding the food arrangement and safety issues, said the officer.

The city has around 1,100 roadside eateries and 400 small and big hotels. Since some pockets of the city have reported jaundice due to contaminated water, the food safety officers will also take samples of water used by the street food vendors. For Puri, where lakhs of devotees will congregate from the day of Rath Yatra to 'Bahuda', the food safety commissioner has been asked by the health department to take adequate food safety measures.