SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, Nov 10: The Food safety wing of (FSW) of Dhanbad district has imposed a penalty of Rs. 1 lakh on a Katras based sweets’ shop ‘New Bombay Sweets’ under Food Safety Standard Act (FSSA) for selling extraneous materials.
The food safety officer of Dhanbad, Aditi Singh said that a penalty of Rs 1 lakh has been realized from the shop after its Peda and Paneer were found unfit for human consumption at the food and testing laboratory of the state.
The sweets’ outlet finally deposited the fine on November 9 through two bank drafts of Rs. 50,000 each after six years of legal battle.
This is the first time in nine years after the implementation of FSSAI in Jharkhand (2011) when Dhanbad’s FSW has imposed a penalty on a shop for extraneous material.
“During a routine drive, the Food Safety Wing had taken samples of Peda and Paneer from New Bombay Shop, Katras on July 3, 2015. The samples were sent for the test at State Food Laboratory Namkum, Ranchi. Both the items were found not fit for human consumption and fine was duly slapped as per the Act,” said Aditi Singh.
According to the official, under Subsection (2) of Section 31 of the Food Safety Standard Act 2011, any person who manufactures for sale, stores, or distributes any article of food for human consumption containing extraneous matter, whether by himself or by any other person on his behalf, is liable to a penalty of up to Rs 1 lakh.
This is the second time in two months that the district’s food safety wing has recovered a penalty of over Rs 50,000 from a food outlet under the FSSA. Two fancy shops, including Shahi Darbar near IIT Indian School of Mines (ISM), were punished in October for being unsanitary.
On November 1, the FSW had raided 50 sweets shops simultaneously across the district and collected samples of suspected items for the test at the Kolkata lab.
