Mumbai: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has urged citizens, housing societies, restaurants, food businesses and commercial establishments to utilise its over 120-year-old Municipal Analyst Laboratory in Dadar to ensure the quality and safety of food and drinking water. The laboratory, recognised as a State Food Laboratory by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), conducts over 70,000 tests annually and offers water quality testing at nominal charges, with reports delivered within 24 hours via WhatsApp and email.
Official Stresses Safe Food and Water for Health
Additional Municipal Commissioner (City) Prajakta Verma-Lavangare said ensuring access to safe and quality food and drinking water is essential for protecting public health. She said BMC is modernising the laboratory to strengthen its analytical capabilities in line with international standards and appealed to citizens, housing societies and commercial establishments to make full use of the affordable testing facility to verify the quality of the food and water they consume and supply.
According to senior BMC officials, the Municipal Analyst Laboratory, functioning under BMC's Public Health Department, was established in 1903 and has been serving Mumbai continuously for nearly 123 years. It is the civic body's only laboratory dedicated to testing both food and water samples. Equipped with modern analytical instruments and upgraded technology, the facility conducts over 70,000 tests annually, including more than 45,000 water samples.
Lab Tests Water, Street Food, and Construction Samples
The laboratory regularly analyses drinking water supplied by BMC's Water Supply Department, water used for construction activities, swimming pools and ice manufacturing, besides food samples collected from street food vendors and eateries. Officials said timely testing helps detect contamination, monitor quality standards and enables prompt corrective action wherever required.
Apart from civic samples, the laboratory also examines food and water samples received from Central Railway, Western Railway and Konkan Railway. It analyses midday meal samples from schools and tests prohibited products such as gutkha, flavoured supari and flavoured tobacco, along with other samples submitted by Mumbai Police. Around 8,000 such samples are tested every year.
According to BMC, the laboratory has analysed more than seven lakh food and water samples over the past decade. A laboratory modernisation project is currently underway to expand its testing capacity and enhance analytical capabilities for the benefit of Mumbai's residents
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