With the rise in mercury, sale of unhygienic and substandard cold drinks, fruit juices and ice creams has shot up. A large number of vendors have appeared on the roadside areas of the district of Jajpur and other areas, posing serious threat to the health of people, especially children.
The vendors are busy selling substandard drinks in many parts of the districts and in various commercial localities. The drinks on sale include different fruit juices and ice creams. Many vendors are selling juice of stale fruits at low prices, especially at the bus stands and other places.
Most of juice sellers are not observing any hygiene standards while washing their utensils in which they serve the drinks to their customers. These drinks are sometimes sold in reused bottles without cleaning which transmit different bacteria and viruses to the customers.
“Sale of spurious cold drinks or the drinks prepared under poor hygienic conditions is one of the main causes for various seasonal diseases among children in summer. Flies, wasps, mosquitoes and other pests at the stalls of vendors make their beverages even more injurious to health”, said Dr AK Mohanty of Balichandrapur.
Talking to The Pioneer, some parents said though the sale of unhygienic food items continued all the year without any check by the authorities, the situation became more serious in summer as the demand for cold drinks increased. “Children are the worst victims of it as they get attracted easily to the colours and taste of these drinks and ice creams and ultimately fall ill,” said Sujata Nanda, a mother whose eight-year-old son is undergoing treatment in the hospital at Chattia after drinking few glasses of spurious cold drinks .
Almost all the juice and cold drink sellers use ice to make the drinks. Many ice factory owners use polluted river water to make ice for which any drinks with the ice is injurious to health, said
Dr B Parida, a retired physician of Bari.
“Food adulteration has always been a major contributor to the health problems of people due to ineffective control of the authorities. Every summer, the situation aggravates as hot weather forces people to take drinks, which they would prefer in normal days,” said a retired doctor GP Das in Balichandrapur.
In the absence of any arrangement for provision of cold and clean drinking water at the public places by the administration, the business of substandard and spurious drinks has been thriving, he maintained.
Some ingredients used in these drinks are injurious to health. Most of the roadside vendors are using illegal and highly toxic food colours and saccharin instead of sugar in drinks. The red-colour frequently used in ice creams and other homemade drinks are injurious to health, Das added.
The doctors have warned that substandard drinks and edibles may cause diseases like typhoid, hepatitis, diarrhoea and different kinds of infections and tonsillitis.
Dr Das demanded a ban on the sale of unhygienic food and drinks in and around school campuses. He further stated if such a ban is not possible, the Government should direct roadside vendors to adopt strict safety measures like using disposable utensils, paper glasses and proper covering of edibles. The measures should be implemented strictly and action be taken against the violators, he stressed.