Bengaluru: Central Jail inmates could soon be given safe and hygienic food

BENGALURU: No excess sugar, salt or oil. Fresh, healthy food with plenty of veggies and sprouts. Central Jail at Parappana Agrahara could soon become an Eat Right campus certified by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI). 

Eat Right is a training and audit mechanism to ensure food produced and consumed is safe, hygienic, sustainable and healthy. A campus selected under this initiative must meet four parameters (see box) and the same is rated on a five-star mechanism.

If certified, the state's largest jail, which houses several VIP inmates, will be the second prison complex in India to earn the title after Tihar, where the certification process is under way. "FSSAI chairperson Rita Teaotia who recently visited Bengaluru, discussed the Eat Right programme with various stakeholders, including representatives from Central Jail. Jail representatives said it was heartening to note that prisons too were being considered as potential campuses as jail inmates are usually neglected. They said 5,000 inmates from low socio-economic background could benefit from this initiative. Since then, we have been working on the licensing/registration process. We will soon begin training, followed by an audit framework," said Ruchika Sharma, media coordinator, FSSAI. 

We've had an initial round of talks. While the area of food preparation is somewhat streamlined, our challenge is at the consumption level. With the jail having a floating population, there is no proper process to make the inmates aware of healthy eating habits. As most of them are from under-privileged background, they do not understand the importance and value of a balanced and nutritious diet. All these concerns need to be addressed," said Dr Uma M, chief medical officer, central prison, Bengaluru.

According to FSSAI, in May-June 2019, 950 inmates at Tihar jail were trained in these healthy food practices. While the department of food safety, New Delhi, has made it mandatory to deploy a food safety supervisor in its prison complex, it has also proposed to build a food-safety testing laboratory in future. Tihar jail houses 32 kitchens and two manufacturing units which prepare food for almost 40,000 people.