Staff crunch affecting inspections

Hyderabad: According to the Food Safety and Standard Act, 2011, the civic body should have at least two inspectors for every circle (one in case of a small circle) to monitor the food quality in hotels and collect samples for examinations. Licences to caterers should only be given after a standard quality test is done, but this regulation is not followed.

In 2010, only 45 cases were booked, 54 in 2011, 135 on 2012, 144 in 2013 and 256 in 2014. The number of eateries in the city is more than 20,000. 

The civic body, incidentally, does not even have its own laboratory to carry out any of these tests. Instead, it depends on the Institute of Preventive Measures.

The Act states the city administration should have adequate number of food safety officers to monitor all food establishments, draw samples for analysis and surveillance, act against unsafe food and ensure that food poisoning or similar problems do not occur.

Owing to the staff crunch, the state’s food testing laboratory at Nacharam tests just about 500-600 samples in a month collected from the entire state.

Less than 200 are from Hyderabad, while the lab can test up to 2,000 to 2,500 samples per month. Officials rue that GHMC has no facilities to check food quality.

Meanwhile, more than 3,000 cases related to food quality issues are pending in courts. Some of them have been running for the past 15 years.

These cases ensure that the food inspectors are busy attending court proceedings instead of performing their actual duties.

As per the rule, hotels violating norms are supposed to be fined and even closed down.

There is a separate magistrate’s court for these cases. Following the Food Safety Act, the corporation, during inspections, first checks the manner in which the food is cooked (taking samples of the materials used), then the way it is served and stored.