Irregularities found at food safety office
The official added that the food safety office does not have enough vehicles to follow up every complaint.
Thiruvananthapuram: Hundreds of complaints received at the district food safety office remain unaddressed raising concerns on the implementation of Food Safety and Standards Act in the state. It is learnt that the authorities haven’t taken any follow-up action on 434 out of the total 680 complaints received till day. Also hundreds of lab reports of the statutory samples collected in connection with various raids and consumer complaints are pending from the Public Analytical Lab.
According to the report from the Vigilance and Anti Corruption Bureau, lab reports on 1,382 statutory samples collected from 2012 onwards are pending. A food safety official said that the lab authorities send reports only if they detect a problem with the food sample. “We take action if the lab result says it is unsafe’. The samples which are safe or not contaminated will not get reported. Hence the number of samples with pending results is showing more in the register,” said the official.
The official added that the food safety office does not have enough vehicles to follow up every complaint.
“We have only two vehicles for carrying out inspection and responding to complaints. It’s impossible to follow up every complaint,” the official added.
Meanwhile, the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau is planning to submit a report on the inspection to the government within 10 days.