Srinagar: Commissioner Food Safety J&K Dr. Abdul Kabir Dar on Thursday convened a meeting to review the process of commissioning and functioning Food Testing Laboratories in the State.
During the meeting, Commissioner was apprised about the work done and achievements of the Food Testing Laboratories during the last four months. It was informed that in 1125 samples have been tested out of which 764 have been found to be confirming the Standards and 361 samples have been found non-conforming.
Public Analyst and Food Analysts were directed to submit the action taken reports regularly and periodically and adhere to Good Laboratory Practices for credible and efficient results and issue the analytical reports and results of the legal as well as surveillance samples in a time-bound manner as mandated in the FSS Act, 2006 and Rules & Regulations made hereunder.
Commissioner impressed upon the concerned Food Analysts and Public Analyst for optimum use of state of art food laboratory and make both the food testing laboratories more vibrant in terms of scope of food testing done on the legal as well as surveillance samples.
All the concerned stakeholders including Public Analyst, Food Analysts and authorised Suppliers of state of the art equipments and Assistant Engineer Mechanical Engineering Department Srinagar were impressed to speed up the process and frame a timeline for installation and validation of these equipments meant for detection and quantification of adulterants, pesticide residues, antibiotics, heavy metals, aflatoxins and trans-fats.
He directed the concerned to dispose of the junk lying around the erstwhile Forensic Science Laboratory building and submit the Detailed Project Report to the Commissionerate of Food Safety for approval.
The meeting was attended by Controller Drugs and Food control Organization J&K Lotika Khajuria, Assistant Commissioner Food Safety HQ, Administrative Officer Drugs & Food Control Organization J&K, Assistant Controller Food HQ, Assistant Engineer MED Srinagar, Food Analysts Kashmir Province, Public Analyst Public Health Laboratory Jammu/Kashmir and authorized representatives of the supplying company.
Later, Commissioner also visited various sections viz, Biochemistry, Microbiology and took stock of the state of art analytical equipment section of Public Health Laboratory, Srinagar and took review of the status of High End equipments including HPLC (High Performance Liquid Chromatography), GCMS-MS (Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectroscopy), LCMS-MS (Liquid Chromatography- Mass Spectroscopy) and ICP-MS (Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectroscopy) that are under installation process.
