TEAM HERALD
PONDA: Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) on Thursday raided four shops at Usgao and Khandepar in Ponda and seized food items worth Rs 59,000.
The food items were later destroyed, as they did not have any labels, batch number, date of expiry and did not maintain food and safety norms.
FDA official Rajaram Korde along with Flavia D’Sousa, Arjun Naik and Pradeep Parsekar conducted the raids under the instructions of Food Director Salim Velji.
Giving details of the raid, Korde said in the morning, they raided a bakery shop at Khandepar and seized food items worth Rs 8,000. The food items did not have labels and expiry date on it. The seized material was later destroyed.
“The FDA raided a bakery at Usgao near Cine Kamla and the seized food items were worth Rs 30,000. The bakery was also operating in unhygienic environment,” informed Korde.
A wholesale dealer at Avantinagar, Tisk-Usgao, was also raided and sweet items worth Rs 18,500 were seized and destroyed. Another shop at Avantinagar was also raided and material worth Rs 2,500 was seized and destroyed.
The FDA conducted the raids under the Food and Safety Standard Act 2006.
Speaking to Herald, Korde appealed to people not to buy food packets like ‘pipes’ which are popular among children, as these could be unhealthy and also other food items without labels and expiry date.
