‘Food safety is your right!’ With this as the theme, a rally was held here on Sunday, organised by Consumer Association of India along with Food Safety and Standards Authority of India. The rally was aimed to bring awareness about food safety and unsafe food among the people.
Consumer Association of India, which is working towards the empowerment of consumer rights, managed to rope in quite a large crowd.
Speaking to City Express, one of the organisers of CAI said, “Food safety has been an issue for everyone at some point of time or the other. Most of them do not have the awareness on safe food and the food standards act. In order to create awareness among the masses, we joined hands with Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) and with the Food Safety Department of Tamil Nadu Government from last year.”
He added, “After joining hands with FSSAI, we had a mass contact education programme over the last six months under the title ‘Food Safety, Standards and Unsafe Food’ in five districts of Tamil Nadu including Chennai, Vellore, Madurai, Coimbatore and Tiruchy. Through this programme we brought awareness to more than 6,000 people in those districts.”
“The programme has been successful in creating awareness not only among the everyday consumers but also among Food Business Operators and FSSAI is satisfied with the results,” he added.
As part of the valedictory function of this mass contact education programme, the rally was conducted. Nearly 400 student food safety champions and members from the Consumer Club of Ethiraj College participated in this rally. The rally started at Rajaratnam Stadium and ended at Ethiraj College, heading throughRukmani Lakshmipathi Salai, P V Cherian Crescent Salai and Ethiraj Salai.
Kalyani Rajaraman, Project Manager, Food Safety Programme and G Rajan, Secretary General, CAI and officials from the Food Safety Department were present during the occasion.