TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: The Directorate of Food and Drug Administration has raided several sweetmeat shops ahead of Ganesh Chaturthi and collected samples of sweets to screen them for adulteration, quality and safety.
In raids conducted over a period of 10 days, from August 22 to September 2, FDA inspectors randomly selected sweets and farsan from marts all across the State, provision stores, exhibitions, etc.
Sweets worth nearly Rs 75,000 have been seized in the week long raids.
“A large quantity of farsan and food items were confiscated from vendors who sold these items without food licence, in several raids in Margao, Salcete and Chimbel, in Tiswadi,” FDA Director Salim Veljee said.
The food articles were not labelled as mandated under Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 and the Rules / Regulation 2011 and goods worth almost Rs 45,000 were confiscated in Salcete raids and around Rs 30,000 in the Chimbel raids.
In another raid, 26 samples of various sweets and farsan including barfi, kaju barfi, pedha, malai burfi, ladoos, shev, chivda, shankarpali, wafers, besan ladoos, sweets containing silver leaves, etc were confiscated.
He said that while prima facie, it appears that all the sweets were found to be of standard quality, the results of some of the samples sent for testing were awaited.
Veljee said that his officers have kept strict vigil on the entry points of the state including road and rail, where sweets manufactured outside the state are brought in.
“The Food Safety officers also kept strict vigilance over the mawa / kalakand arriving in Goa from Belgaum and which is being used in the preparation of sweets and which is brought by railways or bus routes and three special raids were conducted in Ponda, Margao and Mapusa,” he added.
Veljee said that on receipt of tip-offs that suspected quality mawa was being brought into the state, in the early hours of the morning, they intercepted the vehicles, but since the vendors thereafter took the consignment back to Belgaum, it was not confiscated.
The FDA has dealt with complaints of sale of stale sweets by vendors, by collecting and sending samples for testing. Shopkeepers were asked to remove these items off the counter. It also tracked sweets and food articles sold without proper labelling and branding.
The FDA also asked all consumers to remain vigilant during this season while purchasing sweets, farsan and eatables and to refrain from purchase of food articles which are not bearing proper and complete product labelling details. The FDA also warned that food vendors should also exercise responsibility of purchasing and displaying only those food articles which are labelled properly in terms of manufacturing date, best before use, net weight, MRP and also its nutritional label declaration.
“Food vendors should insist their suppliers produce their food licence granted under Food safety and Standards Act, 2006 before accepting and stocking / displaying their food articles,” Veljee said.
