THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: To ensure the availability of good quality food products in the market during Onam season, the district wing of the Food Safety Department has stepped up surveillance and deployed special squads to conduct drives in the capital. The squads will carry out inspections at manufacturing units, baker y outlets, restaurants, grocery shops and vegetable markets.
Assistant commissioner of food safety ( Thiruvanan - thapuram) Alex K Issac told TNIE that the squad’s work began on Monday and would continue for the next two weeks. “We have formed four squads to cover the entire district and they will conduct inspections to book violations. This is the time when the demand for milk, oil and fried items like chips and other snacks is high.
There is a tendency to use harmful synthetic colours which can harm people’s health. Our primary aim would be to prevent such usage and ensure only labelled proprietary products are sold in the market,” said Alex. He said use of harmful synthetic colours would trigger hear t and kidney ailments. “Due to the lockdown, many shops and restaurants have been shut for a long time and during Onam, food business operator s would reopen. Our squads would be keeping a tab on such shops to make sure that all hygienic conditions are met,” said Alex. He said surveillance and statutory samples would be collected during the drives and strict action would be taken against violators.
In July, as part of a special drive, the food safety authorities collected around 540 surveillance samples and 93 statutory samples. “Despite all the challenges, we are trying to keep a close tab on the quality of the products. As many as 362 raids were conducted last month. We had collected several samples of jaggery, rice, sugar, proprietary foods, oil etc, and have booked two food business operators for selling unsafe food,” he said. Around 481 samples were tested using the mobile testing laboratory of food safety as par t of routine surveillance during July. “We had collected around 262 water samples and around 125 were found to have less pH value,” he added.