Despite being found to be errant in food supply and selling adulterated food items, the violators of food safety norms have an option to get their food items rechecked. The alleged violators also have one month time to reply to the notices given to them by the district administration.
SDO, Ranchi, Garima Singh, who carried out the inspection of the shops said that notices have been issued to all the violators and they have one month time to give reply. She added that proceeding may start after receiving the reply and the concerned persons may also go for retesting of their products.
The SDO stated that the raids would continue adding, “As a designated officer of FSSAI it is my primary responsibility to carry out the inspection. The adulteration is rampant and I cannot allow the sellers to play with the health of the people”
Reports on food samples seized from various shops and hotels of the State capital have recently unearthed large scale adulteration of food items which poses health hazard to people.
The administration had taken samples of various items including sweets, khoya, chhena, chutni, flour and pulses from a host of shops from different parts of city during raids held in the recent past. The samples were sent to food analyst of Jharkhand for examination.
The report on 20 samples sent to the administration states that 18 items were either sub-standard or were misbranded.
For example the report on arhar pulse sampled from a mill in Pandra stated that product was unsafe for consumption due to presence of metanil yellow unpermitted colour on it. The paneer samples seized from several places of the city were rated as sub-standard.
Khoya seized from a shop in Asok Nagar was found to be containing a mixture of milk and other fats despite the declaration that it had only milk fat and sugar. The product was termed as misbranded.
Moreover, milk shake collected from a shop was found to be violating several provisions of the Food Safety and Standard Rules.
The milk products of several other shops were categorized as sub-standard.
It may be stated here that according to researches flour, khoya, channa, milk and honey are among the top 10 adulterated food items of the country.
It may be mentioned here that inspection of food items held by the former SDO of Ranchi Bhor Singh Yadav several months back had also revealed widespread adulteration of food items.