This Report of the Public Accounts Committee deals with the Action Taken by the Government on the Observations and Recommendations of the Committee contained in their Twenty-First Report (17th Lok Sabha)
If you think you are consuming packaged water and thus you are safe, you may be wrong. The report card of the State Health Department on water samples shows that water could be substandard, even if it is stored in a sealed container. Of the eight packaged drinking water samples analysed by the Public Health Institute of the department of Health and Family Welfare in June, seven (87.5 per cent) were found to be substandard and thus did not meet the prescribed specification of the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS).
New Delhi The Supreme Court has transferred to itself a petition filed by a leading chewing tobacco manufacturer against the ban on sale of gutka and paan masala. Gutka manufacturers have moved various high courts questioning the constitutional validity of the notifications issued by various state government. The manufacturers are insisting that gutka cannot be treated and regulated as ‘food’ as it has “no nutritional value” and highlight the “discriminatory nature” of the ban that has brought their business to a “complete halt”.
The department of health, family welfare and food safety, Andhra Pradesh, has issued notices to four fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) firms for violation of provisions on misleading advertisements. “Misleading advertisements related to food items without scientific basis misguide the consumer. And, such advertisers attract penalty of up to Rs 10 lakh as per Section 53 of Food Safety and Standards Act 2006,” said Praveen Prakash, commissioner of health, family welfare and food safety.
You can’t swallow it and you can’t spit it out. That’s the problem of state food and drug control department officials, who don’t know what to do with over 230 sacks of seized gutkha in the capital after
The Health Department is preparing to embark on a major exercise to prepare a databank or the statistics regarding hotels and other food businesses in the State, as part of implementing the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 effectively. Not only would the statistics on hotels and food establishments collected, each of the establishments would be graded into various categories. The Food Safety wing and the Health Department will also come out with detailed and separate guidelines on maintaining food safety and standards for food establishments in rural and urban areas.
The Bombay high court on Monday refused to grant interim stay on the ban on the sale of gutka in the state and issued a notice to the government asking for its reply on the petitions filed by gutka manufacturers
The Bombay High Court is on Monday likely to hear five petitions challenging the state government’s ban on the sale of gutkha. Gutkha and paan masala manufacturers have urged the court to set aside the government’s July 19 notification and two regulations under the Food Safety and Standards Act (FSSA), 2006, under which the ban was brought into effect. Dhariwal Industries Private Limited, Ghodavat Paan Masala Products, Rajnandini Foods Private Limited, SDD Agencies Private Limited and Hira Enterprises have petitioned the court.
After a year delay, the Delhi Government has decided to implement the Food Safety and Standards (Licensing and Registration of Food Businesses) Regulations 2011 from the first week of August. This means
Hoteliers in the state have taken a strong exception to the five conditions of the Food Safety and Standards Act, including the restriction on the chefs from wearing ornaments, as they are “not practical and feasible to the functioning of low and medium level hotels”. The State Food Safety Commissioner had issued a circular the other day with 30 guidelines in the Act after the tragic incident of a youth’s death on July 10 after having ‘shawarma’ from Salwa Cafe in Thiruvananthapuram.
The state cabinet approved a blanket ban on the manufacture, storage and distribution of all types of gutkha and paan masala which have tobacco and nicotine content due to increased number of oral cancer patients. Cabinet co-ordination department’s principal secretary N N Pandey said the order would become effective in the entire state soon after publication of a notification.
