Editorial
Combating food adulteration seriously
Unified authority imperative
When public health is facing its worst ever threat from pervasive food adulteration, government has been doing precious little to fight the dreadful menace.
The reasons for that are manifold. These include limited laboratory facilities to test foodstuffs, shortage of skilled manpower to monitor the markets and inadequate legal apparatus to punish the culprits.
Some 500 tons of formalin, one of the most hazardous chemicals used in food adulteration, is imported annually in the country. But only 100 tons of this is needed for various laboratories and plastic industries, the rest of the chemical gets into the food chain. The government must restrict the import and ban sale of the formalin in the open market.
Other dangerous chemicals like calcium carbide, too, should come under effective restriction.
A few mobile courts carry out drives against food adulterators on an ad hoc basis under different city corporations. This is basically touching the fringes.
An overarching structural shortcoming lies in numerous agencies under some 15 ministries tasked with inspecting responsibilities and enforcing law against food adulterators virtually working at cross-purposes.
Obviously, the present government mechanism to inspect and control food quality and regulate adulteration is dysfunctional due largely to this huge mess-up in the system.
We appreciate the draft proposal of the food ministry to bring the overlapping system to fight food adulteration under a single authority.
We recall that the High Court in 2009 issued a rule to set up anti-adulteration court and place food analyst in every district. But nothing has been done so far to implement the HC order.
We are already three years behind on this and HC directive needs to be complied with expeditiously.
Overall, the government must move fast to contain the damage wreaked by large-scale food poisoning.
Basically, the consumers will have to raise their consciousness level and sue the food adulterators without which no durable remedy will be possible.
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