Nagpur : With the onset of monsoon, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Nagpur, in association with National Association of Street Food Vendors of India, carried out a number of awareness drives to educate street vendors regarding hygiene, prevention of adulteration and packaging.
This drive was conducted twice at Futara Lake and Civil lines and one time each near Gandhibagh garden, Children’s Traffic Park and Wadi. Street food vendors were informed about regulation in manufacturing, storing, distributing, etc, with the help of Power Point presentation in a mobile van. Apron and caps were also distributed among the vendors on this occasion.
“Creating awareness sets the stage where you gather feedback, foster participative management, get to ask questions, spark ideas and most importantly seek understanding as to why you are doing it in the first place. And thus creating awareness among food vendors is more important than penalizing them,” said Milind Deshpande, assistance commissioner, Food and Drug Administration Nagpur, while explaining the need of educating food vendors.
To operate with five Food Safety Officers to look after entire city, it’s not a cakewalk. We had to manage legal cases, frequent drives of inspection along with office work, mentioned the Assistant Commissioner.
The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has been established under Food Safety and Standards Act 2006, which consolidates various acts and orders that handles food related issues in various Ministries and Departments. The FSSAI has been created for laying down science based standards for articles of food and to regulate their manufacture, storage, distribution, sale and import to ensure availability of safe and wholesome food for human consumption.
– Shubham Nagdeve
