A crunch of manpower and funds is preventing officers of the food safety department from conducting regular checks in manufacturing units and enforcing the Food Safety and Standard Act, 2006 and other rules and regulations, said Dehradun district food safety designated officer Anoj Kumar Thapliyal on Saturday.
Thapliyal said that the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 is enforced on all food business undertakings-profit, non-profit, public and private- carrying out any of the activities related to any stage of manufacture, processing, packaging, storage, import, sale, transportation and distribution of food.
The Department officials are deployed periodically to inspect restaurants, shops and other places in the district to check the adulteration of items prepared there. The officials monitor preparation techniques and also keep a close watch on hygiene and precautions undertaken by the manufacturers. The department officers during inspection purchase food items from the manufacturing units and send samples to Food and Drug Testing laboratory, Rudrapur for checking the purity. Department needs funds to undertaking its task efficiently, he added.
He further said that the department has issued 3,000 licenses to the business operators whose annual turnover is more than Rs12 lakh and around 5,500 shopkeepers whose annual turnover is less than Rs12 lakh. Thapliyal said that Dehradun being the State capital and one of the big cities of Uttarakhand, the department needs at least 10 food safety officers to conduct inspections in various manufacturing units but only four officers are deputed here.
Thapliyal said that shortage of manpower and funds is adversely affecting the enforcement of the Food Security and Standard Act."Despite all this, we are making all effort to implement this Act in the district. To meet the expenses of inspection in manufacturing units, we have recently sent a proposal seeking allocation of Rs five lakh to the State Government which is still pending,”he added.