Manpower crunch hurdle in implementing food act:

Manpower crunch hurdle in implementing food act:

UTTARPRADESH: The state government may have notified the Food Safety and Standards Act 2006 & Rules 2011 on 05 AUGUST 2011 with the aim of putting an end to poor quality and adulteration, but the Urban development department of uttarpradesh is clueless about how the law will be implemented, given the handful of food inspectors it has at its disposal.At present, there are just 290 food safety officers in the entire state, against a sanctioned strength of 777.The new law stipulates regular collection of samples and testing of food products available in the market to keep tabs on those indulging in adulteration.It’s a daunting task and without food inspectors in place across all nagar nigams/nagar palika parishads in state, the rules will have no meaning at the ground level. In other words, safe food cannot be ensured.Ironically, officials in the food and drugs department did not seem to be aware about how many posts of food inspectors(food safety officers) were lying vacant.“The problem is we still don’t know whether the so-called 387 empty posts have cabinet sanction because the concerned file has been missing for a long time.But it is clear that 70 localbodies food inspector who were notified in P.F.A. act have sanction of uttarpradesh cabinate This could be the reason why localbodies food inspectors have not been notified as food safety officers in all these years, adding that no one was really bothered about adulteration till the law came into effect.To get started,  a proposal to get food inspectors from Urban Development Department . who have hardly been doing any work of late. If  food and drugs department can get the inspectors from urban development, the manpower crunch will be resolved to  appointments of food inspectors cannot be done quickly.there are about 321 food inspector in urban development, but they have no work restict for thier job if they notify as food safety officers by the state food commissioner staff crunch problem solved because they have all qualification and ability for food safety officer according to new Act.They are awaiting for thier notification since last 05 august.