The first meeting of the State Level Advisory Committee of Food Safety and Drug Administration concluded, Chief Secretary gave instructions to increase sampling and testing.

On Friday, Chief Secretary Dr. S.S. The first meeting of the State Level Advisory Committee of Food Safety and Drug Administration was held at the Secretariat under the chairmanship of Sandhu. During the meeting, the Chief Secretary said that effective implementation of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 should be ensured. For this, all concerned departments and stakeholders will have to work with mutual cooperation.
While giving instructions to increase sampling and testing, the Chief Secretary said that strict steps should be taken to prevent adulteration in food items. For this, there is a need to increase the number of mobile testing vans. He stressed on ensuring the participation of the general public in the campaign for right, safe and nutritious food. Emphasizing on the hygiene certification of small and big hotels and restaurants of the state, he said that it should be run as a campaign. He said that the hotels should also be made aware to get the hygiene rating and display it outside the hotel or in the signboard, as well as people should also be made aware that they should go to the hotel restaurant only after seeing the hygiene rating. This will promote the culture of ‘Clean Food Safe Food’.

The Chief Secretary said that efforts should be made to make people aware about the right food, better food to fulfill the objective of ‘Eat Right Campaign’ run by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India. Through videos and jingles, people related to hotels, restaurants etc. should also be encouraged to sell seasonal, organically grown vegetables, products with less use of oil, salt and sugar. Focusing on capacity building, he directed to provide continuous training to the people associated with hotel and restaurant through online and offline medium.
The Chief Secretary said that with special attention on the disposal and use of used edible oil, it should be promoted continuously. For this, every hotel restaurant operator should be made aware of the dangers of repeated use of edible oil and proper information about the disposal of used edible oil should be made available.

During the meeting, Secretary Radhika Jha was informed that 13777 liters of used cooking oil was collected till March 2022 under Repurpose of Used Cooking Oil (RUCO), from which IIP Dehradun has prepared 7000 liters of biodiesel and 6000 liters of biojet fuel.

Secretary Radhika Jha informed that in the last 2-3 years, the State Government is continuously doing better work in the field of food security. The state is among the top 10 states in terms of food security. The state’s rank was 17th in the year 2019-20, which became 14th in the year 2020-21. The rank of the state is 7th in the year 2021-22. He said that 28 training sessions were conducted for the capacity building in which about 2600 people were trained. Simultaneously, continuous monitoring is being done for enforcement, inspection, sample prosecution and adjudication.
On this occasion, high officials of women and child welfare department, education department, food supply, agriculture and other related departments were also present.