The great Indian toxic food fraud

For 60-year-old Harnam Kaur, consuming a pack of edible oil she bought from a local shop cost her her sight. After investigation, the Delhi resident came to know that argemone in the oil resulted in the loss of her vision permanently.

Harnam’s case is neither first nor unique in India as everyday thousands of people get affected by one or the other deadly diseases by consuming adulterated food products. In items such as milk, khoya, paneer, arhar dal, edible oils, sugar, and chilli and turmeric powder, the quantity of adulteration is high.

However, the irony is that even if the culprit gets caught, he goes scot free in the absence of a stringent punishment under the present law, which prescribes maximum imprisonment of up to six months or a fine of `1,000.

“The change in adulteration laws is the need of the hour. Recommendations have been made, but the government hasn’t done anything. We all are aware of the rampant adulteration in food, but lack of proper punishment and fines had not helped our investigating agencies,” said Ashok Kanchan, Chief Advisor, Food Nutrition and Health Consumer Voice.

But with the government planning to change the law and amending the Indian Penal Code (IPC) to make adulteration a serious crime where the punishment could go up to life in prison, there is hope.

The Centre’s move of amending the law came after the Law Commission of India in its report recommended amendment of Section 272 and 273 of the IPC. The panel, headed by former Supreme Court judge, Justice B S Chauhan, also wants Section 357 of the Criminal Procedure Code to be amended so that courts can order compensation for victims.

The panel was of the opinion that the punishment be graded, depending on the harm caused following consumption of adulterated food and drinks. “It is a welcoming step if the Law Commission has recommended life imprisonment. This will certainly cut down the rate of adulteration,” added Kanchan.

Advocate Ashish Dixit, who fights consumer cases in Delhi courts said: “I have filed 50 cases, but lack of laws makes it a futile exercise to pursue them as in most of them, courts let them off by clapping a meagre fine. The Law Commission’s step is a welcome one.”

In its report, the law panel pointed out how checks and balances taken by the government haven’t yielded any result in the absence of the stronger law. Only West Bengal, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh have amended their IPC provisions 272 and 273 to award life term for milk adulteration.

Convictions were secured in only 1,246 cases in 2015-16, and many food adulteration cases never reached conviction stage. The report shows that `6.9 crore in penalties was collected from errant agencies.

Adulteration in food items becomes more rampant during festivals, owing to a steep rise in demand. Unfortunately, the common man is unaware of the adulterants. The government, however, runs advertisement campaigns to warn people about adulterated food.

According to the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, any food that contains additives that are not permitted is considered to be adulterated. If the permissible limit exceeds, then also the food is considered adulterated.

The nature and quantity of the additives should be printed on the label of the container. ‘Artificially coloured’ must be written on the label if any colouring material has been added. Mixing, substitution, concealing the quality, putting up decomposed food for sale, misbranding or giving false labels and addition of toxic—all these come under adulteration.

The Food Safety and Standards Association of India (FSSAI)—responsible for protecting and promoting public health through regulation and supervision of food safety—tested various foods and found milk, ghee, edible oils, pulses, mineral water, etc to be the most adulterated. Its report states that 49,290 samples were tested across India, of which 8,469 (nearly one-fifth) were adulterated or misbranded.

Data collected by FSSAI shows a steep rise in food fraud, with Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh accounting for more than 90 per cent of the total penalties levied.

The law panel report came after the Supreme Court last year directed the government to examine the feasibility of imposing life imprisonment for adulteration, based on the gravity of the offence in cases.

The maximum punishment for adulteration is life imprisonment, but police don’t have the power to invoke the FSSAI Act. It can only be invoked by the food safety authority in the states.

The apex court’s directive to the Centre had come in a 2012 PIL that sought exemplary punishment for those adulterating milk. The petitioner said that milk, the only source of nourishment for infants and a major part of the diet for growing children, was being adulterated with chemicals such as baking soda.

Swami Achyuthanand Thirth had relied on a report—Executive Summary on National Survey on Milk Adulteration, 2011, released by FSSAI—which concluded that 68.4 per cent of milk being sold in the country was adulterated.

According to the report, the worst performers were Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Bengal, Mizoram, Jharkhand and Daman and Diu, where adulteration in milk was found to be up to 100 per cent. It was being adulterated with urea crossing the permissible limit—700 particles per million. Milk was also being made with urea and detergent.

Rice is being adulterated with small grains of stones to increase its weight. Likewise, mustard oil is mixed with crude rice bran oil, spices such as turmeric powder with metanil yellow, which is produced with metanilic acid and diphenylamine.

Turmeric powder mixed with metanil yellow is purely carcinogenic, capable of causing cancer. One of the most frightening instances is low quality khesari dal being added to arhar dal, resulting in paralysis of the lower body. This toxic dal is banned since 1961.

The consumption of adulterated foods may have either immediate or long-term effects, or both. Immediate effects include food poisoning (diarrhoea) and consequently dehydration. Long-term effects are liver and kidney failure, and cancer.

Tragedy Strikes at Mid-Day

Several children have lost their lives after consuming food cooked at their schools

July 2013, Saran district, Bihar:

23 children die from food poisoning after eating their midday meal. It was later discovered that the oil used to make the meal had been contaminated by an organophosphate. The container used to keep the oil had earlier been used to store an organophosphate pesticide.

May 2016, Kanshiram Nagar, Mathura: Four people, including two minor children, die and 200 others, mainly schoolgoing kids, hospitalised, after consuming contaminated milk being severed in the midday meal program in the Pre-middle/primary government School.

Feb 9, 2017, Karimnagar, Telangana: At least 26 students of Government Primary School in Nagula Malyala village were hospitalised when they complained of stomach pain and vomiting after eating the mid-day meals in the school. 67 students had eaten the meals.

Food inspectors to tighten vigil on wheat mills

The inspectors will function in a similar pattern as state excise inspectors who keep an eye on the production and packaging of liquor.

The state food department is preparing a directive for the wheat mills that they have to abide by to ensure quality of the stuff.

KOLKATA: In a bid to ensure quality in production and packaging of chakki atta, the state food department will deploy food inspectors for keeping a vigil in the wheat mills across the state. The inspectors will function in similar pattern as state excise inspectors who keep an eye on the production and packaging of liquor. They will work for a month and then will come back again on a rotational basis after 80 months. In this way these inspectors will keep an eye on all 80 wheat mills across the state.

“We have found that some unscrupulous traders associated with the wheat mills have been illegally extracting sooji and flour from wheat resulting in deterioration of the quality. They are also using inferior quality of plastic for packaging. The stitching too is often found to be of poor quality. We want to put an end to this malpractice as we will not compromise with the quality and food value of atta,” state food minister Jyotipriya Mallick said.

The state food department is preparing a directive for the wheat mills that they have to abide by to ensure quality of the stuff. People involved in manufacture and packaging will have to wear special shoes, gloves on their hands and apron. The room where the manufacturing process will take place will be sealed with glass. The floors should be covered with tiles or marbles. “We will soon float tender for overhauling the infrastructure of the flour mills to make it dust-proof. Those who will follow this scientific way of extracting atta from wheat will only be given the licence to function,” Mr Mallick said.

According to the food department, packaging should be done in 50 or 55 micron plastic. The stitching of the packets should be with modern stitching machines. The packet should mention the manufacturing, expiry as well as the food value of the components of atta on the pack.

The Mamata Banerjee government under the Khadya Sathi project has been providing wheat and rice at `2 per kg to more than 7 crore people in the state. However, the state has started the process of providing packaged atta extracted from wheat to the people residing in remote areas of Paschim Medinipur and the tea gardens of North Bengal. at a subsidised rate. “These people have to bear huge travel cost to reach the wheat mills to extract atta from wheat. So we are providing them packaged atta instead of wheat,” a food department official said.

Kake-da-Hotel under HC scanner over food standards

New Delhi, Feb 27 (PTI) A popular eating joint in the heart of the capital today came under the scanner of the Delhi High Court in the wake of a controversy erupting due to a video allegedly showing dough being kneaded by foot.

Kake-da-Hotel in Connaught Place here was asked to come out clean on the issue of food safety and standards of hygiene by the high court.

"You are one of the oldest restaurants in city. Why cant you maintain proper standards? In some countries, street vendors have better standards than our restaurants," Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva told Mehak Cuisines Pvt Ltd which runs the famous eatery on the outer circle of the Connaught Place.

"So show to the world that one of the oldest restaurants has the best standards in hygiene," the court also said and asked it to maintain proper standards.

The lawyers for the restaurant repeatedly told the court that they have rectified all deficiencies which were earlier pointed out by the Food Safety Officer (FSO).

The response came after the court said that the FSO, who is the competent authority, has pointed out deficiencies and asked "why cannot you rectify the same?"

After the lawyers appearing for the restaurant said all deficiencies have been removed and further steps are being taken, the court asked the FSO to inspect the eatery again tomorrow and file a fresh status report with photographs.

With regard to the controversial video, the hotel said the person shown in the video was not kneading dough, but was cleaning clothes.

During the hearing the court perused the report and photographs of the eatery placed before it by the FSO who had carried out a surprise inspection of the premises on February 23 on courts order.

The photographs showed that food containers were left open, all serving spoons for vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes were kept together, drains in the kitchen were overflowing and inadequate number of hand-wash basins.

The report of the food safety department of Delhi government said that the eatery did not have a chimney, nor were the records or documents certifying that their water and food served to customers was safe and hygienic as mandated under the Food Safety and Standards Act.

Mehak Cuisines had moved the court after the FSO had slapped a notice on the eatery on February 21 after the video was shared online

Food wrapped in newspapers can be unhealthy, says PCB

PUNE: The Pune Cantonment Board (PCB) last week issued an "advisory" for dealers and consumers not to sell or accept food wrapped in newspapers, due to health concerns.

This comes two months after a Central advisory regarding the same.

The board said public should refrain from accepting food items packed using newspapers out of health and safety concerns, due to the kind of substances used for printing."When newspapers are printed, dangerous chemicals are used, which can cause serious health concern. Newspapers also contain microorganisms and other additives used to enhance the print, which can cause dangerous health issues if humans consume it with the food wrapped in it," said the advisory , signed by DN Yadav, the chief executive officer of the board.

Health department officials said the push for this advisory came from medical officials of the Southern Command.

We are not going to ban newspaper wrapping of food outright. Instead, we are looking to educate the public and businessmen about the dangers of this practice," says a senior health department official of the PCB.

The push to discourage newspaper wraps for food had come from the Union health ministry as well. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) had warned in December that the nation was being "slowly poisoned" due to the rampant use of newspapers to wrap food items. The contamination of food due to substances used in a newspaper could lead to serious ailments like cancer, particularly in old people and children, it said.

Knead with feet: Food safety department raids Delhi restaurant after video goes viral

Delhi's Food safety department has called in a raid at the famous Kake Da Hotel after a Twitter video, showing its staff kneading dough with feet, went viral.

You don't have to be a hygiene freak to get a little repulsed by this video.

Uploaded on Twitter, this video shows a glimpse of what goes on in a makeshift kitchen on the roof of Connaught Placei's famous eatery, Kake Da Hotel.
First, you see a man standing in a bowl. Then, he starts to move his legs, like he is mixing something. While it is not spelled out for you, it kind of becomes clear eventually that he is kneading a dough in the bowl...with his feet.
The camera then quickly pans to Kake Da Hotel's banner overhead.
So how many of you have heard about the great food at Kake - Da - Hotel? pic.twitter.com/lB9cLHA1W8
— kaveri (@ikaveri) February 19, 2017
SO WHAT?
It is not a secret that many eateries have their staff knead dough with their feet, since it is so much in amount. Even packaged breads are believed to be made this way, which is why they are said to be called 'pao'.
Also, a user in the comment thread writes that kneading with feet is a common practice in Delhi's famous paranthewale gali as well.
@ikaveri Happens at parathewale gali too, from what I've heard.
— NumbYaar (@NumbYaar) February 22, 2017
BUT DOES THAT MAKE IT OKAY?
No and yes.
No, because those are the same feet that take you to the toilet, mister.
And yes, because some people like to believe that the staff in-charge of kneading the dough wash their feet with Dettol before stepping into the bowl.
@ikaveri hope he had sanitised his legs �
— Kru � (@Achari_Nimboo) February 20, 2017
FOOD SAFETY DEPARTMENT CALLS IN INSPECTION
Following up on this viral video, the Department of Food Safety in Delhi has called in an inspection at Kake Da Hotel.
Reports have it that the deputy food and safety commissioner received a formal complaint regarding the restaurant's practice of kneading with feet.

VMC food safety officers checking in Vadodara

Vadodara Mahanagar Seva Sadan (VMSS) designated officer and additional health officer conducted strict checking in different areas of Vadodara city in three days in the last week. The teams took samples of various food products used extensively in view of peoples health.

The health department formed different teams of food safety officers and checked the quality of the extensively used food items. They took the samples of butter, cheese, ghee, vanaspati, fat spread and other products and send them to the food laboratory for checking.

On 20th February the food safety officers team took samples of butter and ghee from the Khanderao market area, Madan Zampa road, Bakrawadi, Chowkhandi, Kevdabaug and Baranpura areas. 

The team collect samples of fat spread and pizza cheese pack from Khanderao market, loose ghee from Bakrawadi, loose vanaspati from Baranpura naka, loose butter from Kevdabaug, loose ghee from Baranpura and loose vanaspati from Chowkhandi.

On 22nd February the team took samples of cheese, ice cream and cottonseed oil from Manjalpur, Raopura, Dairy Den circle, Fatehgunj areas. 

On 23rd they took samples of cheese, table margarine, fat spread, pasteurised butter, butter from airport, Waghodia road, Kala Darshan, Raopura, Baroda Dairy and Genda circle areas.

In total the team took 18 samples of cheese, table Margarine, fat spread, pasteurised butter, butter, ghee, vanaspati, cottonseed oil and send them to the public health laboratory at Fatehgunj for checking. The teams also issued instructions to to the food business operators for maintain hygiene under food safety standard act 2006.

Huge contraband tobacco products seized by FSO team

Under the supervision of Deputy Commissioner, (SA)/Commissioner Food Safety, the officials of food safety conducted surprise raids at various places in South Andaman District and recovered huge amount of contraband tobacco products from shopkeepers as well as general public.

At Garacharama village a surprise raid was conducted at the food premises of M/s M.K. Eazzy Shoppe and recovered contraband tobacco products and the accused has been booked under the relevant section of the Food Safety and Standards Act’2006. As per information received from Central Crime Station, Port Blair a suspected unclaimed parcel was recovered from the Head Post Office, which was opened in the presence of Post Master and police personnel and recovered 56 pouches of Bhagwan 69(40gm) zarda wrapped inside sarees which was shipped from Surat, Gujarat to Bambooflat. Later, the same was seized under relevant sections of the Act. In another incident, four unclaimed suspected parcels from DTDC Express Ltd, Port Blair were opened in presence of the company staff and police personnel and seized 1.4 kg tobacco leaf, 09 pouches of Ratna brand No.69 zarda(50 gm each), 41 pouches of Ratna Brand No.64 zarda(50 gm each), 57 pouches Ratna Brand No.150 zarda(50 gm each) recovered and seized. Similarly, Police Station, Chatham recovered 7 Kgs of contraband tobacco products and 22 pouches of Nevla Brand Tobacco, 02 zarda tins and 500 gms tobacco products from four passengers arrived from mainland based ship at Haddo Wharf. All the items were seized and legal proceedings have been initiated against the offenders under Food Safety and Standards Act’2006.

Further, the general public as well as business communities are requested not to involve in trade of contraband tobacco products and if any information is available with them may be communicated to the Commissioner Food Safety, A&N Islands. On phone No. 9434280018 and 03192-238881

Food and Drugs Administration confiscates adulterated snacks

PANAJI: The Food & Drugs Administration (FDA) on Friday confiscated a consignment of 400 kgs of adulterated food items, valued Rs 1.09 lakh. Foods items such as chips, samosas, tomato sticks, schezwan sticks, soya papdi, etc. were confiscated from a private bus parked near the Panaji KTC bus stand, near Mandovi bridge.

FDA director Salim Veljee said that preliminary spot-analysis on the food items showed presence of non-permitted colour, and the items did not carry the necessary labeling particulars/declarations, nor did the packages have any labels.

He said that the consignment was manufactured by M/s Natural Food Products, Aurangabad in Maharashtra and was sent to Goa via the private bus service, and was meant for sale at the upcoming carnival in Goa. The consignment was booked by Amit Mishra from Margao.

Veljee said that the consignment was confiscated and destroyed, and a case has been booked against the Margao-based food vendor, as well as the Aurangabad-based food vendor under the provisions of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 and Rules / Regulation 2011.

The FDA enforcement team under the supervision of senior food safety officer, Rajiv Korde was assisted by Amit Mandrekar, Sujata Shetgaonkar, Sneha Sawant, Zenia Rosario - all food safety officers and attendant, Arjun Naik.

Grocer fined Rs. 15,000 for adulteration

A judicial magistrate court here has found guilty a grocer for adulteration of Bengal gram flour and sentenced him till the rising of the court.

According to the prosecution, the Food Safety Department Virudhunagar District Designated Officer, W. Salodeesan and the Sattur Municipal area Food Safety Officer, S. Narayanan, conducted a surprise inspection in Sattur on September 9, 2016.

During the inspection the officials took samples of Besan flour (bengal gram flour) and sent it to Government Food Laboratory for analysis.

It was found that the sample had an unsafe mixture of rice flour, pea flour added with Tartrazine for colour.

After the Commissioner of Food Safety gave prosecution sanction, the Food Safety Officer filed a case against the accused under the provisions of Food Safety and Standards Act 2006 in the Judicial Magistrate Court.

The Magistrate, V. Geetha, also imposed a fine of Rs. 15,000 on the shopkeeper, Chandran, on Monday.

Food Business Operators in Peren District notified

Peren, February 20 (MExN): In pursuance of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 (Licensing and Registration of Food Business) Regulations, 2011, the CMO & Designated Officer, Peren Ngangshimeren has directed all Food Business Operators in Peren District to obtain License or register their Food Business under the Act from the office of the CMO Peren for the period 2017-2019 on or before April 30.

The Food Business includes food manufacturers, millers, grinders, whole sellers, retailers, godwons, warehouse, cold storage, distributer, transporters, stockers, agencies, departmental suppliers, repackers or relabellers, pharmacies dealing with food items, good supplements, hotels, restaurants, canteens, carters, all petty food business operators etc.

Any renewal application filed beyond the period mentioned shall be accompanied by a late fee of Rs. 100 per day. Licensing and registration forms and other details can be obtained from the office of the Chief Medical Officer on all working days.