Vijayawada: While the city has a number of posh restaurants coming up with fancy, creative interiors, the kitchens remain unhygienic and a major cause of concern for citizens.
A number of incidents of pests and vermin being found in food of customers have been reported in the recent past. On June 22, two persons fell sick after they inadvertently consumed Chicken Dum Biryani with a lizrd in it at Silver Spoon Restaurant in Vijayawada.
By the time, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) arrived at the spot after taking suo moto cognisance of news reports of the ‘lizard’ biryani, the restaurant managed to dump all evidence. Further, the customers left the premises and so no action could be taken. Speaking to TOI, assistant food controller of FSSAI Purnachandra Rao said no action could be taken against the restaurant as there was no scientific evidence found at the place which could not be sent for the state laboratory’s stamp.
“By the time we reached the restaurant, there was no sign of the customer nor the left over biryani as seen in the picture (in news reports). If only we could have recovered the evidence and sent it to the lab, then we could have taken judicial action against them,” Rao told TOI. This isn’t the only incident where action couldn’t be taken against erring restaurant owners, there was a recent incident where one of the biggest Biryani restaurant chains (originally from Hyderabad) in Guntur served food with worms in it. However, no one complained to the FSSAI and no action was taken.
FSSAI officials said most of their enforcement works are done on suo moto basis and enforcement drives but complaints come rarely to them, leaving food safety neglected. A case-in-point could be the FSSAI’s enforcement action at Kanaka Durga Temple in December 2017 when they deemed laddus being served to devotees below prescribed standards.
Another aspect of food safety being neglected could be gathered from the state government’s unwillingness to strengthen the understaffed food safety department. Officials said they need more men to carry out operation.
“The reason customers end up finding lizards or insects in their food is because of unhygienic kitchens. A consumer might feel insect in his food is a small thing but once we get a complaint we thoroughly check every aspect of the food production process,” Rao added.
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