The Hindu 25.02.2013
Costs keep people away from checking food quality
Sharath S. Srivatsa
Of 800 cases handled by BBMP lab, only 15 came from citizens.
Though the menace of food adulteration appears to have
increased in the recent past, lack of awareness and prohibitive costs
for testing seems to be keeping Bangaloreans away from getting their
suspicious food products analysed in laboratories.
Sample
this. If the food testing laboratory in Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara
Palike (BBMP) handled around 800 cases last year, only about 15 cases
were brought to it directly by the citizens while the rest came through
its officials. Further, enquiries with some leading private laboratories
revealed that they received fewer cases in a whole of last year.
This
comes even as food products such as chilli powder, spices, ghee,
butter, honey, flour, coffee and tea powder, beverages and chocolates
among many others, being adulterated by unscrupulous traders and
companies.
“Consumers are not even aware of what
tests should be conducted since a range of chemical tests are on the
offer and each of the tests are expensive. In fact, they do not even
know what to look for in food products when they are suspecting that
they have got an adulterated product,” said Deepa Vishwanathan, chief
executive officer of Pristine Laboratories, a certified AGMARK Lab in
the City. According to her, they receive about 4 or 5 cases in a year.
“Most
of those tests conducted are prescriptive analysis that the companies
come forward to before the product is made available in the market.
However, investigative analysis that can come afterwards are very few,”
she said.
If nutritional analysis is cumbersome and
has a wide range of tests, pesticidal analysis is expensive while
microbial and water analysis are for cooked food. The cost of these
tests range from Rs. 80 to Rs. 10,000, and some times even more.
“The
process at BBMP is a little cumbersome. Either you have to pay Rs. 300
along with the sample for testing or give a written complaint to the
Chief Health Officer following which food inspectors would be sent and
samples collected,” a source in BBMP said and added that generally
people do not come voluntarily with a complaint. “Things could change
when the provisions of Food Safety and Standards Act 2006 will be
implemented.”
Acknowledging that the awareness about
food safety is poor, K.J. Balasubramani, assistant director of Shriram
Institute for Industrial Reseach, a NABL accredited laboratory, said
that there is an urgent need to create awareness on food safety. “On an
average we get about 2 cases a month. Government should take the lead in
creating the awareness.”
