HYDERABAD, Sept 22: The district health officer, Dr Ashfaq Ahmad Bhutto, has said the local health office has no funds for conducting chemical analysis of various kinds of food items.

He was responding to queries of labour councillor Rana Mehmood Ali Khan at a Hyderabad District Council session here on Wednesday regarding testing of samples of different food items, taken from the market from Jan 1 to May 15.

Dr Bhutto informed the council that 70 samples had been taken from different places for chemical analysis and reports of 63 had been received. He said of the 63 food samples, 19 samples of mineral water, tea leaves, spices, dry milk and ice cream were substandard. He said the quality of mineral water Al-Hayat and Fresh, corolla dry full cream milk, and Badshah and Al-Imran spices was not good.

He said in seven of the cases, fine had been imposed by trial courts concerned for violation of Rule 13 of the Sindh Pure Food Law, 1965, and the remaining 12 cases were being tried.

Dr Bhutto observed that paucity of funds was making the task of analysing food items difficult. He said health officials had no objection to getting the samples analysed from laboratories but they faced financial constraints.