Bhubaneswar: Street vendors in Odisha will soon receive training in “safe food preparation”, as part of state government efforts to sternly deal with use of adulterated raw materials in eatables, officials said.
The focus on food-safety measures comes amid Odisha rising to the fourth position in the Food Safety Index for the 2020-21 fiscal from the 13th position in the previous year, and 26th in 2018-19.
At a recent virtual review meeting of the food safety advisory committee, Chief Secretary Suresh Chandra Mohapatra said the vendors must be made aware about the dangers of adulterated food on human health, they said.
“Training and orientation to vendors will be a definite deterrent against unsafe food,” Mohapatra said.
He directed officials to strengthen enforcement activities against adulterated food items, adding that the “criminal activity”, similar to sale of spurious medicine, must be “mercilessly” dealt with.
The meeting also deliberated on intensifying surveillance, increasing the number of testing laboratories, involving private labs and other food fortification measures.
In the last financial year, 576 out of 3,049 samples were marked for adulteration and misbranding, according to an official release. The figure for this fiscal stood at 446 out of 1,984 samples till October.
