The legislator further said the government should “not ruin Bihar just to gain fame and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar should reconsider this ban”
Failure of illegal transaction deals led the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar to ban ‘pan masala’, Janata Dal (United) MLA Amarnath Gami told news agency ANI.
The ruling coalition government of JD(U) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state had in August banned 12 pan masala brands in Bihar for a period of one year for containing magnesium carbonate which causes health problems.
The action was criticised by Gami, who claimed the ban was imposed due to “the failure of big illegal transaction deals".
The legislator further said that government should “not ruin Bihar just to gain fame and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar should reconsider this ban”.
He further raised concerns of unemployment of those associated with the sale of pan masala, and said the government should have created employment opportunities before announcing the ban.
If the government cannot provide jobs, then it has no right to snatch the livelihood of people associated with the sale of pan masala, said Gami.
The decision was taken by the state government following the presence of magnesium carbonate in all the 20 samples of pan masala collected from nine districts by food safety officers.
Using power under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, Food Safety Commissioner Sanjay Kumar banned the manufacture, storage, transportation, distribution, display and sale of pan masala of 12 different brands for a period of one year from August 30, an official release had said.
Pan masala comes under the category of food items and hence the use of magnesium carbonate in pan masala is a violation of clause 3.17 of Food Safety and Standards (Food Products Standards and Food Additives) Regulations 2011, it added.
The state government had earlier imposed a ban on the manufacture, sale, distribution and storage of gutka and all its variants.
The Bihar government had also enforced the total prohibition on liquor sale in the state from April 5, 2016.
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