PESHAWAR, May 11: The provincial health department is establishing three new food testing laboratories in three districts to ensure availability of pure edibles in the NWFP.

“Search has been started to select appropriate sites in the districts for setting up of these laboratories,” officials said, adding that the labs would be established as part of the Health and Nutrition PC-1 of the health department, which had been sent to the government for approval.

They said that the step had been taken in view of the workload on the lone Government Public Health Food Analysis Laboratory in the province and complaints regarding sale of unhygienic and substandard food items.

According to the Pure Food Ordinance 1960, the health department is required to collect samples of edible oil, milk, tea leaves and other items from the market to send them for analysis to the laboratory and impose penalties on violators.

In case of any adulteration, FIR is lodged against the responsible people but lack of staff at the Government Public Health Analysis Laboratory had hit its performance badly, they said, adding that equipments worth Rs15 million were unpacked for the last 18 months due to non-availability of technical staff.

Under the PC-1, they said, more vacancies were being created to cater to the needs of the existing lab and also to appoint them in the proposed labs. Strengthening the capacity also included the proposed plan.

The entire province was dependent on the single lab, which was not possible for it to cope with the increasing workload.

They said that some high-ranking officers were trying to appoint non-technical people on the vacant posts, but the department concerned had been opposing such appointments.

Due to shortage of field staff, they said, sanitary inspectors were collecting food samples from shopkeepers in the province. Under the law, only an official not below BPS-17 should collect food samples from the market.

“We have demanded approval of several posts in the PC-1 to cope with the situation regarding shortage of staff,” the officials said.

As a rule, the lab is to be headed by a BPS-19 officer, who should either be a doctor having Masters in Public Health (MPH) degree or a biochemist. However, a BPS-17 officer is working as in-charge of the lab for the last several years.

The proposed laboratories, they said, would be tasked to receive samples from the adjoining districts as well.

After the establishment of the new labs, plans had also been made to establish one such facility in each district of the province.