Food Safety Officers nowhere in sight
Govind Sharma
JAMMU, May 2: Taking undue advantage of the lockdown, several shopkeepers are indulging in malpractices and deceiving the vulnerable customers by selling expired food products while Food Safety Officers who are responsible to check adulteration and ensure that safe and nutritious food is served to the customers, are no where in sight.
According to the reports coming in from peripheries of Jammu, several shopkeepers have stored expired food items including packaged juices, spices, cakes, biscuits, oil, ghee, etc and are selling them to innocent customers, particularly migrant labourers and illiterate people.
People from many rural areas also complained that the shopkeepers in their vicinity are selling rotten tamarind (imli), inferior quality soya chunks (nutree), and adulterated pulses with impunity as they know that no Food Safety Officer is going to inspect their stores during ongoing lockdown.
“I rarely go to purchase ration items to shops but as my father was sick few days back, I have to go to purchase some essential food items in a Karyana shop in my locality. I purchased several food items like pulses, rice, spices, oil and tamarind but when I checked mandatory declarations on the packets of the purchased food items, I was shocked that the shopkeeper had given me the tamarind which was not fit for human consumption,” said Ashish Magotra from Kot Bhalwal area.
He said it was clearly mentioned on the packet of tamarind: “This product is not for human consumption but for industrial and cleaning purposes” but the shopkeeper started arguments with me when I refused to take that. The shopkeeper said that he is selling that product for several years but nobody has complained ever and everybody is consuming this as no tamarind of other company is available in the market.”
Rajnish of Mishriwala said, “A few days ago, a shopkeeper sold me a packet of bread that had expired a day ago. But I got to know only when I reached home. So I could not do anything about it”. He said it was apparently done deliberately by the seller but next day when I complained him, he denies any wrong doing.
“Greedy shopkeepers are playing with the health of the consumers but Food Safety Officers are nowhere visible and have given free hand to such greedy traders,” he added.
Om Parkash from Nagrota alleged that a shopkeeper in his vicinity sold him biscuit packets, which had expired in February. “The manufacturing date on the packs was August 31 and the instructions written on the pack read that it was fit for consumption within 180 days of the date of manufacturing,” he said, adding he returned all the packets but came to know from his neighbours that their children regularly eat that particular biscuits by purchasing them from that specific shop.
Kanchan Devi, an educated housewife from RS Pura told that once during the lockdown a shopkeeper sold her a bottle of juice with no expiry date and also expired toothpaste but as the shop was close to her house, she immediately returned those products to the shopkeeper.
“Some shopkeepers are greedy and want to make money even out of the food items that have become outdated for consumption. That is an offence but here in rural areas everything is legal as Food Safety Officers seldom inspect shops in rural areas,” she added.
Kanchan said the day in or day out they read in newspapers that Food Safety Officers inspected several food establishments in municipal limits and challaned erring shopkeepers but they never read about such inspection or imposition of penalty on shopkeepers in rural areas though adulteration and malpractices in selling food items is much in rural areas.
When contacted, Assistant Commissioner, Food Safety, Rural Jammu, Dev Dutt Sharma said that due to lockdown and restrictions on movement, the Food Safety Officers could not go for checking but as Government is going to relax some restrictions, they will increase random checking of shops selling food items and ensure that safe, clean and fresh food items are sold by the shopkeepers. He said that they will specifically check that no trader store sells expiry food items.
Follow our WhatsApp channel
