Civic body, food department trade charges, fail to have records on raids
After an RTI was filed by DC only nine zones out of 15 responded to petition . one zone Tondiarpet had a report of an inspection, while the rest are yet to respond
Chennai: There are no records of the raids and inspections conducted by the city corporation at various malls, beaches and other food outlets in the city. In a response to an RTI petition filed by DC, as many as nine zones out of the 15 under the Chennai corporation responded to the petition out of which only one zone Tondiarpet had a report of an inspection, while the rest are yet to respond.
The report states that inspection was done in four wards (35, 36, 37, 45) and shops, which prepared food on the roadsides, were penalised Rs 2,000. Meanwhile, every other zone, which responded to the petition, pointed out that the food safety department regularly inspected the shops while corporation health officials inspected the eateries once a month. However, there were no reports on the inspections generated.
Meanwhile, there is a cold war on between the corporation and food safety department over the right to inspect eateries in the city. Officials in the food safety and drug administration department find the city corporation to have poorly equipped labs to analyze samples of foods and complain that they are conducting independent raids without coordinating with the food department.
The corporation meanwhile finds the food department to be understaffed to carryout mass raids and often raids the city’s eateries for hygiene to avert any outbreak and relieve its health officials from stress.As per the Food Safety and Standards Act 2006 of the Government of India, the TN government had established the Food Safety and Drug Administration department (FSDA) from August 5, 2011, to ensure standards of food items sold.
“But the corporation, though having no authority to seal shops, often conduct inspections without any intimation to us. As a result, raids done by the corporation and food safety department in consecutive days are considered as harassment by food vendors,” said Mr S. Lakshmi Narayanan, designated officer, FSDA, Chennai.
So far the FSDA has identified 12,400 eateries out of which 5,229 have been inspected and four shops have been sealed. “The corporation does not have dedicated labs to test the samples. But coordination among the two departments must improve,” Mr Narayanan added.
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