19% food samples found substandard

Chandigarh, October 22

The food safety wing of the Punjab Health and Family Welfare Department has taken 5,297 samples of food items in the past seven months, of which 1,006 (19 per cent) were found to be substandard and 74 unsafe/failed the food standards.

Health Minister Chetan Singh Jouramajra said strict action would be taken against the culprits.

Jouramajra said the food safety wing of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was leading an awareness campaign to provide quality food items to the people of the state. The Department of Food Safety was also committed to providing safe and healthy food to people under its slogan “If it is not safe, then it is not food”.

He said keeping the festive season in mind, the food safety wing has launched a special campaign to check the adulteration of silver leaf (vark) used on sweets, under which 164 samples of sweets, including silver foil, have been taken across the state.

The samples have been sent to Kharar lab to check their purity and legal action would be initiated under the Food Safety and Standards Act against the failed samples, Jouramajra said.

This festive season, the food safety wing was also proactively restricting the sale of stale/rotten dry fruits, which were normally packed and consumers were unable to check their quality while purchasing, the minister added.

2-quintal ‘barfi’ destroyed

Muktsar: A team of the Health Department on Saturday destroyed two quintals of spurious ‘barfi’ at different shops in the district. The team inspected various shops and also took samples of other sweets. TNS