Comr, FDA reviews food safety measures

Srinagar: To highlight the importance of Food Safety on the occasion of World Food Safety Day, Commissioner Food & Drug Administration, Shakeel ur Rehman Monday chaired a meeting with all District officers of Kashmir division on the theme “Safe food today for a healthy tomorrow”.
He reviewed the working of all the districts and functioning of Food Testing Laboratory Srinagar and asked the district officers to work tirelessly for ensuring safe and wholesome food to consumers.
The progress of various initiatives of the Food Safety & Standards Authority of India like, Eat Right Challenge, BHOG, Hygiene Rating, Fortification, RUCO and Mapping were discussed. The meeting was informed that eight districts in J&K are implementing Eat right challenge & instructions were given to the nodal officers running the schemes to activate all the stakeholders – consumers, food businesses, community organizations to make the program a people’s movement and review the same on weekly basis.
Under the RUCO scheme, the importance of public awareness was highlighted to dissuade reuse of edible oil among the common masses and to discourage the re-use of edible oil after frying.
The meeting also reviewed progress under FoSTaC & Mapping and it was informed that licensing and registration of Food Establishments has shown significant increase and some of the food business operators have hired services of certified Food Safety Supervisors as required under FoSTaC. It was mentioned that BHOG Scheme was meant to monitor quality of food items served at religious places.
The working of food testing laboratory Srinagar also came up for discussion which recently got NABL accreditation and it was impressed upon the concerned officers of the laboratory to ensure all the High End Equipment are used to achieve the highest quality standards of the food testing with regard to contaminates & adulterants.
The officers were further directed to implement these initiatives on ground and to make full use of mobile food testing labs for conducting on spot testing of all food items especially those consumed on daily basis like milk, spices, edible oil etc. Keeping in view the present situation that has emerged because of Covid- 19 pandemic the officers were directed to ensure that all Food Business Operators including their workers are vaccinated and strict action be taken against those Food Business Operators who hesitate in inoculating themselves. Recent drives against milk and edible oil were appreciated and officers were instructed to carry such drives frequently in the interest of public health.