NAGDA: Over five dozen traders from Nagda, Khachrod, Unhel and Mahidpur tehsil of Ujjain district in Madhya Pradesh met union minister of Social Justice and Empowerment Thawar Chand Gehlot on Friday and submitted a memorandum to him demanding amendments in the food safety act.
In the memorandum the problems faced by the traders due to the new provisions of the act have been highlighted.
The traders told Gehlot that the new Act being enforced by the state government will create a lot of problems for them. Due to this Act they have to suffer due to the mistakes made by branded companies. They alleged that the officials are trying to scare the traders on the directions of big companies, which is not appropriate.
Satyanarayan Mehta, Pawan Porwal and many other distinguished traders were present on the occasion. Union Minister Gehlot assured the traders that he would meet Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and make him aware of their problems.
‘Mafia freed on bond, but traders are being jailed’
They further alleged that injustice is being meted out to them by the administration. The people involved in acid mafia, liquor mafia, gambling, betting are allowed to go scot free at the police station after filing of a bond, but the traders are sent to jail directly, though they are contributing to the progress of the country.
The traders said that under the Act, there is a provision for life time imprisonment due to adulteration in food products, but this provision will lead to police rule as due to this provision the police will try to scare the traders and will extort funds from them illegally.
So, there should be amendments in the act, they demanded. Initially the penalty imposed by the government used to be 10 to 20 thousand but now the penalty amount has been increased to 2 to 5 lakhs, which is inappropriate, they said.
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