Ahead of Holi, Delhi inspects food outlets to check adulteration
NEW DELHI : Ahead of Holi, the food safety department has ordered random inspection of eateries and other food businesses across the city to check for food adulteration, especially in sweets and gujiya.
The demand for sweets and namkeen witness a rapid increase during Holi and often leads to substandard products flooding the markets, mainly in unauthorised ones.
“It has been decided by the Commissioner, Food Safety, to conduct special drive during the Holi season to lift both surveillance and legal samples of sweets, especially gujiya and related items. All designated officers are directed to get the samples lifted,” said an order issued by the food safety department on Monday.
Officials said all the 11 district units have also been asked to maintain surveillance using their own intelligence units.
A department official said that they have received complaints of substandard products in food items, especially gujiya -- a common gifting item during Holi, in the past. “Our department takes the food samples on regular basis to ascertain the food safety. This Holi we are giving specific attention to sweets, ingredients used in the sweets and gujiya. Whereas the food samples that are found to be unsafe are sent for prosecution with penalty and imprisonment, the substandard and mis-branded food articles will attract financial penalty. The food business also gets a chance to appeal against the findings of the state food lab so that a fair and transparent process is followed before the final action. The department also directs the suspicious food to be discarded immediately in case sufficient reasons are there to believe that the food product is harmful or spurious,” said food safety commissioner Neha Bansal.
“We have 15 food safety officers who carry out field inspections... All of them have been directed to ensure that the samples are lifted from random places both on the basis of complaints and also on the basis intelligence that they gather,” said an official.