Editorial
Setting up of food courts
What is holding it back?
UNBRIDLED food adulteration and use of toxic chemicals to preserve fruits, vegetables and fishes compounded by lack of deterrent action from the government have put public health in severe jeopardy.
This is baffling, since the government, directed by a High Court order of 2009, issued a gazette notification last March informing setting up of a food court in every district and metropolitan cities. The question is what is holding back these courts to function and try and punish the food adulterators, the enemies of public health?
Adulteration of all types of edibles in the kitchen market including fruits having taken unprecedented proportions in recent times, a stern decisive action against the outrageously unscrupulous and greedy traders engaged in such criminal trade cannot wait.
And if, as reported, constitution of the courts is being hampered by any lacunae, such absence of a detailed guideline or specific time limit in the said gazette notification, the government must address those shortcomings expeditiously in the greater interest of public health.
On-again, off-again actions taken through mobile courts and that, too, often rather lenient compared to the degree of the crime committed by the offenders have only gone to further embolden the food adulterators.
It is time they are made to get their deserved comeuppance. The government must stop dragging its feet over the issue. It must activate and empower the food courts to bring the food adulterators to due justice.
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