The mushrooming of unregistered food stalls in the nook and corner of the steel city has been a cause of concern for denizens in the absence of a Food Inspector.
While thousands of stalls selling lassi, sugarcane juice, gupchup, chaowmin, bada and samosa have come up on the sides of main roads and lanes, the Rourkela Municipality has reportedly no knowledge about the identity of the stall owners.
“No one is there to inspect the purity of the foods being served in thousands of stalls in Rourkela. The Municipality authorities are yet to take steps for the registration of these stalls,” said some residents.
Though the annual registration fee per stall is Rs100 only, many stall owners are yet to register their stalls with the Municipality. Sources said by January 2014 the total number of registered stalls were 961, though the actual figure would be much more than that.It is also alleged many owners interested to register their stalls have been harassed by the municipality. On many occasions we have been asked to pay hush money in municipality for which we prefer not to register our stalls,alleged many.
As the roadside stalls are not properly inspected by the Municipality, the vendors don’t take adequate care to prepare hygienic food. The Food Inspector’s post lying vacant for the last five year has added to the denizens’ woes . It is learnt that five months back an order had asked Sundergarh Food Inspector to officiate here for three days in a week but that order is yet to be executed.
It may be noted that taking adulterated gupchup 53 persons of Sector-16 Tumkela basti and six persons of luhakera basti were hospitalised recently. Though their lives were saved but major accidents in future cannot be ruled out, allege many social workers here.Even taking advantage of absence of a Food Inspector, many hoteliers are also allegedly supplying adulterated food to the consumers. People have demanded that the post of Food Insector in Rourkela Municipality be filled up soon.