It’s time to revisit food safety norms
If you want to know the quality of food served at students’ hostels across the country, all you need to do is google ‘food poisoning from hostel food’. You will be shocked at the number of reports of food poisoning that unfold.
Here is a sample: On April 1 this year, 55 students from a government-run residential hostel in Motakondur, Telangana, had to be hospitalized for food poisoning. In February, 29 girl students were rushed to the hospital in similar circumstances in Sukma district, Chattisgarh. In November, 12 students had to be treated at a hospital for food poisoning in Bhatkal, Karnataka. In October, 40 students took ill from bad food served at a hostel in an engineering college in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. Around the same time, 40 students from Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh fell sick after eating tamarind rice served for breakfast. In August, 30 students suffered the ill effects of unsafe food in Aurangabad, Maharashtra. The list is endless.
Fortunately, the food safety regulator has now begun to crack the whip on educational institutions for violating the country’s food safety laws. In fact the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India’s audit of canteens, messes and cafeteria at 11 prestigious central government educational institutions of higher learning, including IITs and IIMs sometime ago , showed even these institution did not comply with food safety laws. While seven failed the audit, four needed improvements. Shocked by the findings, the FSSAI has asked commissioners of food safety to ensure educational institutions’ compliance with food safety laws.
Section 31(1) of the FSS Act stipulates that no person shall commence or carry out any food business except under a license from the regulator. So every caterer cooking and serving food at the hostel mess/canteen has to have a license to do so. And a true copy of the license should be properly displayed.
Food Safety and Standards (Licensing and Registration of Food Businesses) Regulations, 2011, mandate that food business operators ( including those catering to students in hostels), shall ensure that all conditions of license as prescribed under the regulations are complied with at all times. And these conditions specify the requirements vis-àvis location and surroundings, kitchen hygiene, equipment and containers, facilities for cleaning utensils, drainage and waste disposal, air quality and ventilation, lighting, procurement of raw materials, food preparations, hygiene of personnel etc.
The regulations also mandate that the licensing authority ensure periodical food safety audit and inspection of licensed establishments through its own or agencies authorized for the purpose by the FSSAI.
Hostel food in India has always remained synonymous with poor quality. This deplorable state of affairs can certainly change for the better, if state food safety officials start enforcing the laws stringently. They should also respond with alacrity to students’ complaints about bad food. For too long, educational institutions have handed out poor quality food at the cost of students’ health and ignored their complaints against food contractors. Corrupt practices have played a major part and this has to now end. In fact, every educational institution having catering facilities should invite regular feedback from students on the quality of food and act on it.
Last November, I happen to read a tender calling for food contractors, issued by an educational institution in Tamil Nadu. In addition to the condition that the contractor comply scrupulously with all relevant food laws, the detailed tender document had penalty clauses for the use of poor quality raw materials, colours and baking soda, and the reuse of oil. If only all educational institutions come up with such detailed contracts and enforce them stringently, we will see a healthier picture vis-à-vis students’ food.