FDA cracks down on 27 city restaurants

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Sunday crackded down against 27 restaurants in Mumbai for not maintaining quality of food and hygiene. This comes after FDA official received several complaints regarding bad quality of food been served in some of the restaurants due to which they suspended their licenses and issued show cause notices to its owners. The restaurants which were raided are located in different parts of city which includes Andheri, Saat-Rasta (Mahalaxmi), Govandi, Borivali and Malad. “The raids on these 27 hotels were conducted after a tip off and it was learnt all the restaurants were violating the basic food and safety hygiene guidelines for which strict action was iniated,” said FDA official. He further said during routine inspections they had warned the restaurant owners to maintain and improve food safety standards. “Despite warning them the owners did not improve food quality and hence action was taken based on complaints we received,” said official. Shailesh Adhav, Joint Commissioner FDA (Food) said they have suspended the restaurant licences for violating the guidelines which has been regulated for food preparation. “Earlier also we had issued the notices, but they failed to improve the quality. But when we raided their restaurants and tested the food, we realised that the restaurants had not paid heed to our earlier warnings,” said Adhav. He further said they are also inspecting other restaurants in the city to ensure the food quality is maintained.