The Hindu 19.07.2012
Two city restaurants closed down in raids
Problems noticed most at joints selling Arabian food
Two city restaurants were temporarily closed down in a
raid by the Mobile Vigilance Squad of the Health Department here on
Wednesday. The raids were carried out following the death of a student
by food poisoning in Thiruvananthapuram two days ago.
Over
the past two days, raids led by District Licensing Authority A.
Mohammed Rafi were conducted on 20 city restaurants. A squad member said
many of them prepared food in unhygienic conditions. The freezers were
not working in some places. Cooked food items were kept in open
containers.
Presence of open drains near the cooking
and food storage areas was noted in some cases. Another major problem
was the mixing of vegetarian and non-vegetarian food items while being
stored in the freezer.
“Two restaurants, Arabian Dine
on Annie Hall Road and Broast at Thondayad were asked to close down
temporarily. Since they can solve the problem with the existing
infrastructure, they can probably reopen in a week’s time,” said Anil
Kumar, Food Safety Officer, who was part of the squad. Mr. Kumar said
the problems were noticed most at fast-food joints selling Arabian food.
Since those who are running these were fairly new to the industry, they
did not follow the hygienic rules.
The Food Safety
Commissionerate formed recently according to the Food Safety and
Standards Act of 2006 has been organising awareness programmes on hotel
hygiene since January. Training programmes were also conducted recently.
But only a few hotels participated in this, Mr. Anil Kumar said.
According
to the new Act, all hotels have to get new registrations and licenses
before August 4. But only 20 per cent of the hotels in the district have
complied with the rule till now. The hotels under the Vyapari Vyavasayi
Ekopana Samithi had opposed some points in the Act and had asked for an
extension. But now they have started applying for licenses.
Meanwhile,
the health standing committee of the city Corporation has expressed
concern that the Food Safety Act has taken away its powers to take
action against food safety offenders.
The health inspectors will hold an emergency meeting on Thursday to discuss on the safety measures to be initiated.
