PESHAWAR, June 18: Adulteration, an act which should invite punitive action, mostly goes unchecked and unpunished. Municipal officers, tasked to check the menace, are known to look the other way.
Some people allege that many inspectors collect samples of adulterous food items, and clear them after taking their pie.
In the market parlance it is called ‘monthly’ which these inspectors or their henchmen collect on a fixed day or date from shopkeepers.
Sabzi Bazaar near Chowk Fawara in Saddar has become an unhygienic food street due to the negligence of the authorities concerned.
“I am working for the last three years in a small shop where food items are sold. I have not ever seen any food inspector checking the quality of food sold here,” a man selling Siri payee told Dawn.
In Sabzi Bazaar there are small hotels, and juice and dairy shops, but all sorts of filth is to be seen all over the place, with the stench rising to the heaven. It is also close to the Nothia bus-stop, one of the city’s busiest places. The uncovered food items easily get polluted with the dust and smoke of the buses and rickshaws plying close by.
“The food and sanitary inspectors inspect the place and the samples are taken to the laboratories. If the lab report is not found satisfactory, legal action is taken against those selling adulterated and unhygienic food, but mostly such sellers are fined,” a district health officer said.
Only one challan was submitted before the judicial magistrate on the basis of low-quality food being sold, out of the total 850 food samples examined by the health department between December 2002 and April 2003, record of the health department shows.
According to a survey conducted by Dawn, municipal inspectors and food inspectors of the health department visit shops to check the prices and quality of food items, but shopkeepers’ statements were at variance with each other about the frequency of such inspections.
According to vendors, food inspectors came once a week. Others said the inspection took place once a month or once in two months in Saddar, the city’s main bazaar.
The various departments involved in checking the menace laid the blame at each other’s doors. They complain of overlapping of powers which ultimately facilitates wrongdoers.
“They take samples and fine those selling low-quality food stuff. The fine ranges between Rs200 and Rs5,000, but the vendors usually come to know of the inspection a day earlier, so they stand fully prepared,” a shopkeeper said.
“It is a big city so food inspectors can’t inspect the shops quite often,” the DHO argued.
“Once the food inspectors took fresh chicken as a sample, and when I objected to it, they fined me, and I know it was not because of food’s quality, but because of my behaviour,” a hotel owner said.
The prices of food items have increased sharply but the quality of food has slumped. The situation is getting worse due to the inefficiency of food inspectors. No serious action by the authorities appears in sight.