KMC starts drive to prevent sale of inferior quality food

Kolkata: In a bid to ensure that the restaurants and food stalls in the city do not serve inferior quality of food during the Durga Puja, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) will start its food drive from Monday.

The drive this year will be borough wise with Borough X and XVI being taken up on the first day. Areas like Lake Gardens, Golf Green, Bijoygarh (Borough X ) and Thakurpukur , Behala , Joka (Borough XVI ) will be covered .

"It is assumed that the turnout at the restaurants will be comparatively lesser this year amidst the COVID 19 pandemic situation. So there is every possibility of restaurants using the leftover food of the previous day the next day. The same may be true for the wayside eateries too. We will be picking up random samples and checking the same and if we found that the food vendors or restaurants are providing inferior quality of food we will take action against them as per law," said Atin Ghosh, Member of the Board of Administrators of KMC who is in charge of the Health department.

Food officers of the KMC will be entering into the kitchen to find out if expired spices or articles are being used in preparation of food and if cleanliness and hygiene are being properly maintained.

"We will be using our mobile food testing laboratory for checking the quality of food right at the spot," said a senior Food safety officer.

There will be eight mobile teams and a central team who will be carrying out the drive. Each team will have 9 members.

The drive will continue till October 30.