Any one indulging in food adulteration and playing with lives of people will not be spared, Commissioner Food Safety J&K Dr. Abdul Kabir Dar said on Saturday.
Dar said that he has geared up all his team to be on toes and respond to any call from public with a ‘prompt action’.
“We are working on Saturdays, Sundays and on gazetted holidays as well. We will have a grip over such frivolous elements and crack the whip who indule in food aluteration,” he told INS.
FS J&K had recently ordered that every stake holder involved with the food business must get themselves registered with the government. The deptt had asked traditional chefs, waazas, to get registered as well.
“Any one in the food chain i.e from harvesting till it gets on your table must be registered. Anyone trying otherwise will face law, ” Dar said.
According to Dar they have been working day in and day out to break such practice of food adulteration ‘to save people’s lives’.
“We first put up a warning later an awareness campaign was launched but now fraudsters will face the aggressive FS deptt,” Dar confided.
He said that ‘a weeks time has been given to get every one involved from harvesting, transportation, pqckaging, processing, selling etc to get registered after that we will begin the raids, informed or surprise raids’.
“People should understand that we have a responsibility to fullfill towards masses. We cannot let anyone play with lives, ” he said.
He added that there are adulteration that is carcinogenic and government won’t allow anyone wreak havoc into society.
“More than 4 crore of fine money we have already submitted to state treasury. But our objective is to wipe out food adultertion from the state, ” Dar said.
He appealed general public to help them as well and urged masses to always ask for a reciept of purchases.
That will help them to drag any voilator to court.
Dar has already convened a meeting and had reviewed the process of commissioning and functioning Food Testing Laboratories in the State.
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.
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.
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