KOCHI: Though the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India has recently introduced stricter food safety regulation norms, most of the food sellers including the luxury star hotels find it difficult to comply with them.
In fact, food business operators are bound to fulfill 30 guidelines on safety, hygiene and sanitary conditions. Many of the food vendors and petty restaurants across the state have been forced to close down as they found it difficult to comply with the norms. During the ongoing statewide raids on eateries, it has been found that even the luxury star hotels could not meet the norms.
The Kerala Hotel and Restaurant Association (KHRA), though it welcomed the efforts to ensure hygiene and quality of food, pointed out the difficulties in implementing the norms at a go, citing many factors including prevalence of migrant workers in the hotel industry. The Association also alleged that despite having no legal right, food safety officials were serving closure notice to eateries.
“When hotels have been asked to comply with FSSA norms, Authority officials should also follow the legal procedures. The officials can only serve improvement notices and can close down eateries only if they fail to improve quality standards in 15 days. But, they are imposing dictatorial, undemocratic and impractical conditions on hotels,” said Jose Mohan, KHRA state secretary.
He also pointed out that only an adjudication officer can impose fine on big hotels for violation of norms. “No adjudication officer has been appointed in the state so far. Other officials can slap fines only on petty restaurants and wayside and street food sellers. We’ve raised these issues before the State Food Safety Commissioner and the Health Minister who have agreed to take up the matter,” he added.
Earlier, the KHRA approached the High Court challenging the implementation of the 30-point norms. According to the Association, many of the regulations were impractical as they overlooked the ground realities here.
Meanwhile, refuting the allegations, assistant food safety commissioner Abdul Jaleel told DC that implementation of food safety regulations was simple and no hotelier would be forced to close down for silly reasons. “Hotel operators can ensure implementation of all the norms in the given situation.
The State Food Safety Commissioner has the right to impose a fine up to Rs 2 lakh. If a firm is found to be functioning under very poor hygiene condition and selling stale food which is dangerous for human consumption, the inspecting food safety official can instruct the firm to immediately stop its operation,” he said.
Regarding the prevalence of migrant labourers as hotel workers, he said that the hotel owners should provide proper training before allowing them to directly handle food. Many hoteliers have employed labourers from far off states after providing them training in basic hygiene and sanitation practices.
“The State Food Safety Commissionerate has made the 30-point norms simpler and translated it into Malayalam, after consulting with the hotel owners’ association representatives,” the official added.
Meanwhile, the public, especially those who depend on hotel food regularly, are in favour of regular raids on eateries.
