Editorial
Formalin-free Malibagh kitchen market hullabaloo
Touching the fringe of a wider malady
Much is being made about the lone Malibagh market having become formalin free! As though a rare scientific feat has been accomplished. The sense of achievement is however, quite justified when you think of the obvious, pervasive and lethal health hazard in our daily food intake that seems to have become the norm.
While we welcome at least one toxin-free kitchen market, we cannot rejoice in the fact that city dwellers from other areas are swarming Malibagh bazar when they have a natural right to unadulterated food at every market in the city.
The technology has always been available to detect chemical toxin in edibles for sale and it is also affordable. But none in authority ever cared to take the rudimentary precaution even in the face of media reports and public outcries over pervasive adulteration of food. The citizens have been subjected to nothing short of murders by poisoning. And, yet such a massive public health interest was sacrificed at the altar of crass commercialism.
The administration's inability to ensure access to safe food is the biggest example of governance failure. Aberrations in as sensitive an area as nutrition, public health and well-being were allowed to be the rules with an impunity that should shame us all.
As if in substantiation of our point, Malibagh kitchen market has been 'detoxified' not by any government intervention but through an initiative of FBCCI and Malibagh market management committee.
If the issue is to have a Tk 1.35 lakh worth of a chemical detector installed in all the markets of Dhaka city what is stopping the government including DCC making metropolitan markets chemical free? The private sector has already come forward and a greater assistance from it is only to be expected.
The campaign for safe food implies a lot of other things than merely monitoring the retail outlets. From import to wholesale, the network needs to be flushed clean of chemical adulteration. Basically for perishable goods to be preserved for a reasonable shelf-life, a string of warehouses would have to be built up as part of an overall strategy.
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