PUDUCHERRY: The poor implementation of the Food Safety and Standards (FSS) Act, 2006, due to inadequacy of manpower and testing infrastructure, poses the risk of the public consuming unsafe food in Puducherry, observed the Comptroller and Auditor General of India in its report for the year ending on March 2019.
The registration and obtaining of licences by all Food Business Operators (FBOs) is yet to be ensured by the department, the CAG report revealed.
As there was no system to track the periodical renewal of licences, FBOs continued operation even after expiry of valid registration/licence. The department could not deploy adequate number of Designated Officers and Food Safety Officers and had been functioning with significant shortage of manpower. This resulted in inadequate number of inspections and food samples being collected for testing.
Even for the samples collected, there was only one Food Testing Laboratory available and that too with shortage of equipment and chemicals. Non-strengthening of infrastructure facilities in the laboratory had resulted in the issuing of test reports without analysing all the required safety parameters.
The failure to do so carried the risk of the public consuming unsafe food products. No awareness campaigns were conducted.
The gaps in implementation of the Act were largely due to inadequate human resources which clearly indicated that food safety was not prioritised.
In the past few days, the food safety department had taken up a special drive to inspect hotels, restaurants and food joints after a consumer had been affected seriously on consuming biriyani and several other complaints.
Officials of the food safety department have sealed the freezers of a star hotel on Beach road after the raw non-vegetarian food stored in them was found decomposed and the freezers were found to be not working properly. Food safety officer Dhanaraju said that the beef was stored for a month. Similarly one of the canteens in the JIPMER premises was also sealed by the FSD. Fungus infected vegetables were used in preparation, while decayed fruits were used in preparing juices, said Dhanaraju. The kitchen was unclean with cockroaches roaming inside, he said.
In around 10 other restaurants in hotels, ice creams were found stored with non-vegetarian food in the same freezer, which leads to contamination. Even non-vegetarian food like sea food, poultry, mutton, pork, beef should be segregated, he said.