500kg adulterated paneer destroyed in Mansarovar

Jaipur: From peas to pulses and black pepper to almonds – authorities have come across adulterated and sub-standard food items during an ongoing anti-adulteration drive. In the series, health department’s food safety wing destroyed 500 kg of paneer, suspecting it to be adulterated, in Mansarovar area on Saturday. These food items were being supplied to several shops across the city. 

Health department officials said that the paneer was brought to Jaipur from Kishangarh Bas of Alwar district. The officials said that in the initial investigation, it was found that the paneer was produced by using cooking oil. However, the health department officials had to call Shipra Path police when the owner of the firm allegedly started creating chaos. 

The drive continued for six hours at the firm. The health department officials collected two samples of paneer and sent it for laboratory testing. The health department officials said that the adulterated and sub-standard food items they have seized during their drive against adulteration in the city in past 10 days, have brought out shocking results.

“Use of synthetic colour as bleaching agent for giving a fresh look to green peas, almonds, black pepper and pulses have been found during the drive. It was being sold in the market. These items are cheaper and mostly sold to hotels and restaurants,” said a health department official. 

Frequent consumption of food items with synthetic colours has adverse effect on the health of the people. “If a person consumes such items for longer periods, it may cause ulcer and it may also act as a carcinogenic substance if eaten for a long time,” the official said.

Synthetic colour up to 100 parts per million (PPM) is allowed, which is a negligible amount. “But, we have found in the past, that those accused of adulteration were using higher amounts of synthetic colour, beyond the permitted limit,” he said.

Illegal meat shops on rise in Dehradun

Around 200 small meat shops are running in the city despite the fact that most of them do not have the mandatory licence. The result is that the stuff being sold from these shops does not get a proper ‘yes’ from the authority concerned. Furthermore, animals are being butchered in the local meat shops, which is also illegal. What is more, the animals as well as the butchers are not checked by the officers concerned, something which creates an issue about the health of the people who buy and consume such meat. 

Sources state that all the mutton shops should have a no-objection certificate (NOC) from the police department, municipal corporation and food and safety department as per the rules revised by Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI).“But a majority of the shops fail to clear even the first step. Being, thus, left with no other option, the shop owners collect a ‘licence’ from the common service centres to run their shops illegally,” said an observer.

However, the common service centre has no right to give such NOCs to any of the shops. “However, they have made a business out of it. They are not just making and supplying NOCs but they also are making those out to open meat shops to shell out extra money which is around Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,000 for making such NOCs,” the observer added. 

Quizzed over the matter which is posing health hazards to the people aside from trashing the rules, the designated officer, Food Safety, GC Kandwal said, “As we are aware of the issue, our inspectors regularly go out on inspection and cancel the invalid NOCs. There are around 10 cases which we have slapped on such meat shop owners in the city. Things are now under process.” 

Speaking of the matter, an officer of the food safety department said that such common service centres are illegally granting NOCs. “Operation of such centres can be stopped as per law,” he said.

Queried, the MCD chief health officer Kailash Joshi said, “The role of MCD is to take action whenever a complaint is filed with us. We check the proper sanitation of the places besides responding to the complaints filed by the people. Our team checks all these things and the shops found on the wrong side of the law are appropriately punished.

1L Food Biz Operators to be imparted training in Punjab

All big and small Food Business Operators (FBOs) in Punjab would be imparted training in wake of the glaring flaws observed during the inspections conducted by the Food Safety Teams in the past couple of months, KS Pannu, Commissioner Food Safety Punjab said on Saturday.

"It has been observed that FBOs knowingly or unknowingly overlook the norms laid down by Food Safety and Standards Authority of India. Compromise with the food quality is a serious health concern and can not be ignored," said Pannu.

Under Tandrust Punjab Mission, healthy and hygienic food is an area of primary focus, so it has been decided to provide intensive training to all the FBOs registered with the department, which includes nearly one lac big and small FBOs, the official said.

The training would focus on all the aspects of providing healthy and hygienic food, do's and don'ts of processing and cooking food, hygiene of the work place and the work force as well as prohibition of usage ingredients of restricted by FSSAI would be impressed upon the FBOs, said Pannu.

The Commissioner Food Safety informed that the training would be imparted by an organisation registered with the FSSAI as training partner and expression of interest has been invited by the department from the interested organisations. Soon the training would be undertaken by the shortlisted organisation. Pannu said training would also be imparted to all the Rehriwalas serving food and snacks to the people in markets and on roadsides. However, it would be absolutely free of cost for them.