KOCHI: As part of the pre-monsoon drive to keep diseases at bay, the Food Safety Commissioner on Monday raided some of the hotels in the district.
The extensive raids were undertaken to ensure stipulated standards in the hotels, a primary measure to prevent the outbreak of diseases. As per the instruction of the Food Safety Commissioner, five squads inspected hotels in the district- Kochi city, Muvattupuzha, Aluva, Paravur and Tripunithura.
Each team consisted of an assistant food safety commissioner and three food safety officers and they conducted the raid from morning to evening.
The officials came from different parts of the state to conduct raids.
In the city, 11 hotels were raided, three hotels were given closure notice- two functioning at Kaloor and one at North railway station as they failed to meet the required standards. A fine to the tune of Rs.42,000 was imposed on other hotels which were given strict warning to improve their quality of standards. In the city, the raid was led by assistant food safety commissioner Joseph Shaji George and team. In Muvattupuzha, 12 hotels were raided by a four-member team led by assistant food safety commissioner Radhakrishnan and a fine of Rs.25,000 was slapped.
At Aluva, assistant food safety commissioner Sivadas led the team which inspected nine hotels and imposed a fine of Rs.34,000 with strict instructions to improve.
At Paravur, a team led by assistant food safety commissioner Sugunan conducted inspections on nine hotels and imposed a fine of Rs.13,000. At Tripunithura, a total fine of Rs.50,000 was imposed by the team on nine hotels which failed to meet the standards.