In 7 months, Govt imposes Rs 18 lakh fine against food adulteration.

Srinagar, Nov 29 : Deputy Commissioner, Food Safety, Kashmir in a meeting revealed that under meat and other eatables drive, the food and safety organisation has imposed nearly eighteen lakh fine from April 2021 to 31 October 2021.

Divisional Commissioner, Kashmir, P.K Pole was informed that several drives were launched for checking the adulteration of milk and milk products across Kashmir.

Also, 40 prosecutions were launched against the meat sellers or butchers who were selling the meat in insanitary conditions.

According to the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO), Pole in the meeting said that various complaints have been received regarding the meat provided to the public is not up to quality while as public has been charged for A-grade meat.

In a meeting it was revealed that nearly 528 total numbers of prosecutions were launched while 5000 inspections were carried out by Food Safety Compliance through regular inspection and sampling from April 2021to 31-10-2021.

“Penalty or fine imposed by the food and safety organisation was Rs 17,67,200 and the penalty including imprisonment was sixty thousand during that period,” reads the document.

Under the drive, the license fee realized by the organisation was nearly 50 lakh and 403500 values of food items were seized while 39800 values of food items were destroyed.

Pole was also informed that in addition to routine market checking, fortified mustard oil was tracked, identified and seized, sold by unscrupulous persons.

“Complaints with regard to presence of low quality eatables in the market have also been received which needs to be properly checked and stopped, besides a long term mechanism must be in place to check this menace,” reads the document—(KNO)