Minister for Health V.S. Sivakumar has said the government machinery
under the Commissioner of Food Safety to ensure strict enforcement of
food safety norms in the food market is being further strengthened.
Replying to a calling-attention motion from Indian Union Muslim League
(IUML) member M. Ummer in the Assembly on Tuesday, the Minister said 57
new posts would be created immediately in the department to strengthen
the inspection wing to detect violations of food safety standards by
merchants, hoteliers, and food vendors.
Mr. Ummer had pointed out that the department now had only 83 employees
to cover the whole of the State and the staff strength was grossly
inadequate.
The Minister said the department’s three regional laboratories in
Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi, and Kozhikode were being fully utilised to
test food samples collected during surprise raids on hotels and eateries
and also from merchants dealing in essential commodities.
In addition, the facilities of other recognised testing centres too were
being utilized. He said the stipulations in the act governing food
safety standards were being enforced in a phased manner.
The entire machinery required strengthening. That was being done step by step in a focused manner.
Kerala was essentially a consumer State depending on large import of all
articles of day to day use such as vegetables, poultry, eggs, milk, and
meat.
Therefore, the State’s food safety enforcement wing was drawing help
from its counterparts in the neighbouring States to ensure the efficient
enforcement of safety norms with respect to the articles brought here
across the inter-State borders.
Mr. Sivakumar said the department had received 1,107 complaints on this subject during the last six months.
The department conducted raids on 3,245 hotels and eateries during the
last six months and had given ‘improvement notice’ to 1,900 of them,
besides taking action against several others found lacking in attention
on the basic norms in ensuring that the food they served was safe.
The department had also conducted over 3,000 awareness programmes among
roadside food vendors and others to ensure the supply of hygienic and
safe food to customers.
