Editorial
Fruits gone lethally toxic
Compelling HC directives
This is the second time in a year that the High Court has issued directives to a number of authorities to eliminate fruit contamination by injection of chemicals. It is to be noted that a previous set of directives for punishing traders guilty of the murderous offence had a short-lived effect.
What the court interventions go to show is the flagrant nature of violation of law in the public health domain. On the one hand, those dealing in fruits ranging from gathering through transporting and storing at wholesale points to releasing for retail selling, are either active players or abettors in the crime. Carbide is used to ripen fruits pre-maturely and formalin for a longer shelf-life.
The malady of treating human life as a plaything is widespread, well-networked and entrenched. This is fuelled by a ravenous appetite for quick buck and lucre of profit margins at every step of the marketing process. So much so that those practitioners brazenly go about the business without the slightest prick in their conscience. They seem to have gone beyond the pale of moral counseling. Indeed they need to be made into examples of severe punishment.
If we delve into why the high judiciary felt the need to intervene, the government agencies responsible for food safety are only left to be hanging their faces in shame. It's an administrative failure in the basics interspersed with corruption. This is a collective dysfunction on the part a plethora of government agencies. Everybody's business is an orphan.
This impels a designated authority to be the nodal agency to ensure compliance with the court directives. There should be a composite oversight committee at the apex with representatives from agencies responsible for safety of edibles. The HC has suggested as much.
The lethal range of health complications created by contaminated foods, fruits being currently under spotlight because this is season for them, gives rise to an issue of building consumer resistance against buying contaminated fruits, either imported or locally produced.
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