PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Food Safety and Halal Food Authority has said that the students of 300 religious seminaries out of 400 in the province have no access to clean drinking water.

According to a statement issued here on Tuesday, the authority checked water supply system in the seminaries across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa after a report about food poisoning to a student in Kohat due to contaminated water.

It stated that most of the water tanks were open that could result in any food poisoning incident.

It said that more than 200 seminaries were served with improvement notices along with the directions to install water filtration plants.

The statement said that the survey was carried out in all the divisions of the province.

Attaullah Khan, a spokesman for the food authority, said that three-day crackdown was completed wherein 400 seminaries across the province were checked. He added that the kitchens and water tanks of the seminaries were checked and found rusty, unclean and against the food safety standards.

“The mixture of food collected in the localities was major cause of food poisoning. Different food items react when get mixed with each other,” he added.

Published in Dawn, September 26th, 2018