SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, April 9: Food testing in Namkum (Ranchi) based lone food testing lab of Jharkhand department is set to start again after 15 months.
National Accreditation Board of Calibration and Laboratories, (NABL) Government of India has given accreditation to the Jharkhand government’s Namkum based State Food and Testing Laboratory to carry out the legal testing of food items for two years.
A senior authority of the state health department today admitted to having received the letter of NABL regarding the recognition for carrying out the test.
“The letter was issued on April 7 by the central government authority and has given permission to the lab for two years starting from April 5, 2022, to April 4, 2024,” said a state health department official.
After two years, NABL will again audit the infrastructure of the Namkum Lab of Jharkhand for the continuation of accreditation further.
The Food Safety Standard Act of India (FSSAI) had stopped legal food testing at the Namkum based State Lab of the Jharkhand government in January 2021 on technical grounds.
The official said it is sheer relief for the state health department as its anti-food adulteration drive had been handicapped in absence of national recognition. The state had to send food samples to the National Food Laboratory (NFL) Kolkata for getting them tested for the last one year. The process was not only costly but also created delays in getting a report.
The official said that the Food Safety Standard Authority of India has not only given recognition to Jharkhand lab but also has given advanced testing equipment namely Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry ( ICMPS), Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GCMSMS ) and Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (LCMSMS) of worth Rs 8 crores which stands it (Jharkhand lab) at par with the national laboratory of the country.
The official said Jharkhand Lab has already the services of renowned food analyst Chaturbhuj Meena, who is considered one of the senior-most analysts in the country, and now with the availability of advanced technologies would make Jharkhand lab a national rank lab.
However, the official admitted that there are vacant posts of scientific officers, analysts, lab technicians and other assistant staff. “Health department, especially food commissioner additional chief secretary health Arun Kumar Singh, is serious about making it (lab) at par with national rank laboratories,” he said.
