Vendors selling substandard food items and spurious drinks outside schools and colleges in and around Peshawar city are a common sight.

Hundreds of such pushcart owners could be seen from morning to afternoon along the main roads, on the streets and in posh localities without let or hindrance.

Among such places is the busy Warsak Road, where more than 30 schools, colleges and seminaries are located.

Vendors sell unhealthy food and spurious beverages to small schoolchildren not only threatening the health of the latter but also hindering smooth flow of traffic.

According to experts, such items are prepared at unauthorised factories and that their sales surge in the summer season.

Dr Feroz Shah, who runs a private clinic in Peshawar, said it was common that pushcarts sell unhygienic food and drinks outside educational institutions.

He said children needed healthy food, which contained ingredients essential for their physical growth and protection against diseases.

“Teenagers regularly consuming unhealthy food remain prone to diseases. Such food satisfy the children’s appetite but don’t help them grow strong. As a result, they become physically weak, their colour turns pale and they get mentally frail,” he said.

The children from five to 14 become vulnerable to occasional diseases if they frequently take unhygienic food items including pakoras, parathas, kebab, samosas, french fries, burgers and ice lollies. Most of these edibles lie on carts and at shops uncovered and thus, being exposed to scorching heat, dirt and flies.

Children swarm pushcarts for unhygienic food and spurious drinks before entering schools, in the break and after school hours.

“During the summer season, the number of children affected by unhygienic food surges by around 70 percent,” Dr Noorwali Shah Afridi, a child specialist working with the Lady Reading Hospital Peshawar, told Dawn.

He said many unregistered drinks factories operated in Peshawar city.

The doctor said by and large, school administrations turned a blind eye to the sale of unhygienic edibles close to their premises.

“The use of unhealthy food items causes not only illness but also poor body defence mechanism among children. Such kids complain of nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, cough, high fever and headache. They also develop other complications,” he said.

Dr Noorwali said the children taking unhealthy food and spurious drinks lost appetite for fresh meat, vegetables and even fresh fruits and that often, they developed a taste for unhealthy food stuff and cold drinks.

Shamim Akhtar, a nurse working at a government school on Warsak Road, said after the advent of the summer season, the number of students with upset stomach caused by stale food goes up considerably.

She said most schoolchildren didn’t take breakfast at home and used unhygienic food items sold by the roadside vendors.

“I receive six to 10 students daily with complaints of upset stomach, headache, sore throat, nausea and diarrhea. Most of them don’t take lunch boxes from home due to the carelessness of parents,” she said.

Murad Ali, a street vendor, said he earned around Rs2000 a day.

He revealed he gave Rs600 bribe to the police daily to ‘do business’ outside a private school on Peshawar Ring Road.

“We all vendors grease palms of the police to park our pushcarts outside schools. First, food controller seldom cracks down on us and second, we change ours places regularly,” he said.

A police official said the force fined encroachers, including street vendors and pushcart owners, during a recent massive action.

“No one is allowed to encroach on the government land or park wheeled vehicles on the roads. We heavy impose fine on such violators,” he said.

Aftab Umar, the chief controller of food in Peshawar district, said he and his staff members regularly raided factories and people involved in manufacture and sale of unhygienic food stuff.

“Recently we sealed eight unregistered cold drinks factories in Peshawar and collected samples of 27 authorised food items made by local companies. We detain and heavily fine them for violating public health rules,” he said.

He said pushcart owners and street vendors changed their spots daily to avoid crackdown.

“We impose a fine raging from Rs10,000 to Rs30,000 on makers and sellers of unhygienic food and spurious beverages and even detain them. We raid the places of such people on public complaints,” he said.

Aftab Umar said the testing of food and drinks samples for quality was a great problem as there was only one laboratory for the purpose in the entire province.

“Chief Minister Pervez Khattak recently ordered the establishment of a food testing lab at divisional level in the province. This will prove very helpful in providing speedy results of samples and thus, ensuring early action against culprits,” he said. He said the testing of food samples usually took more than five months.

“Now, according to the plan, seven food testing labs one each in Bannu, Dera Ismail Khan, Hazara, Kohat, Malakand, Mardan and Peshawar will be set up in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. They will make quite easy our job of keeping a eye on illegal ice factories, vendors and kiosks in the city,” he said.

Published in Dawn, May 24th, 2015

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