VIJAYAWADA: Medical and Health Minister Satya Kumar Yadav directed officials of the food safety department to improve their performance significantly and to ensure that Andhra Pradesh ranks among the top ten states in the country.
Reviewing the department’s functioning on Friday, the Minister said the state currently stands at 28th position in the national rankings announced by the Union government in March 2024. He stressed that the situation must change and warned that negligence by officials would not be tolerated.
The Minister said the department’s performance had deteriorated because of the mismanagement of the previous government and warned that strict action would be taken against those responsible if improvements are not seen. He announced that senior officials would conduct monthly reviews, while he himself would review the department’s performance once every three months.
Emphasizing the importance of food safety in protecting public health, Satya Kumar Yadav said effective monitoring of food quality could help reduce serious diseases, including cancer.
The minister also directed officials to implement a Face Recognition System (FRS) to ensure employee attendance is properly recorded and linked to salary payments. He further revealed that after the coalition government assumed office, the state secured around ?130 crore from the Centre through agreements aimed at strengthening food laboratories and other food safety infrastructure.
During the review, the minister expressed concern over the decline in food sample collection across districts. He said the trend indicated a lack of seriousness among officials and staff in discharging their responsibilities.
He pointed out that Food Safety Officers (FSOs) in districts such as Machilipatnam, Palnadu, Annamayya, Visakhapatnam, and Kadapa, as well as Assistant Food Controllers in Chittoor and Kurnool, were residing far from their workplaces, which he termed unacceptable.
The Minister sought to know why Food Safety Officers were failing to meet the target of collecting 12 samples per month. Over the past 11 months, each officer should have collected 132 samples, but only six out of 40 officers achieved the target.
He also raised doubts about the low adulteration detection rate in the state. While nearly 20% of food samples at the national level are found to be substandard, the figure in Andhra Pradesh is only about 8%, he pointed out and enquired the reasons.
The minister also asked officials why the four mobile food safety laboratories provided by the Central Government were not being fully utilised.