Mumbai: The Food and Drug Administration has seized sweet ‘khoya’ worth more than Rs3.60 lakh from Gulab Food Products in Kandivali. This comes after FDA on Wednesday issued a stopwork notice to Ganesh Bhandar, a well-known establishment in Girgaum.
A team led by Food Safety Officer TB Ghumane seized 899 kg of substandard sweet khoya, Rose Barfi and Malai Barfi during the raid on the Kandivali establishment on Thursday.
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“During inspection we found that khoya was stored in unhygienic condition and was suspected to be substandard. We then seized three samples for further analysis,” said Shailesh Adhav, Joint Commissioner, FDA. The FDA is taking steps to curb the increasing use of substandard food products, Adhav said.
“The drive against adulteration, spurious colours, substandard materials and spurious raw materials would continue. If the collected samples are found unsafe and injurious to health, imprisonment up to three months and a fine would be imposed. If substandard material is found, the adjudicating officer can slap fines of Rs2-5 lakh depending upon the severity of the case,” the FDA official said.
The establishment is suspected to have indulged in violations, including operating without a licence, using expired food items and using synthetic food colours in food preparation, according to FDA officials. The inspection also brought to light the absence of appropriate medical fitness records and insufficient segregation of vegetarian and non-vegetarian food items, thus increasing the risk of crosscontamination, they said.
About Food Safety Regulations
According to the Food Safety and Standards Act of 2006, eateries or vendors with an annual turnover of less that Rs12 lakh can seek registration, while those with a bigger turnover require a licence. There are nearly 1.3 lakh active licence holders and 2.4 lakh registered entities in Mumbai. There are only 13 food safety officers in the city and thus checks for hygiene or collection of samples are infrequent. However, the FDA has in three months issued shut business notices to 20 restaurants and has also given improvement notice to 137 of the 155 restaurants, while collecting a fine of Rs1.70 lakh.
