Hyderabad: Hotels and restaurants in the city, beware!
From the days when the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation had just two food inspectors to keep an eye on 20,000 eateries, including plush hotels, restaurants, tiffin centers, and roadside kiosks, leading to a rise in complaints about unhygienic kitchens and several other malpractices in eateries, things have changed. The GHMC now has 20 new Food Inspectors on the job, with six more to join shortly.
The situation hitherto was such that though health and sanitation officials of the municipal corporation booked cases and levied penalties, many hotels and restaurants never bothered to fall in line. On a daily basis, the corporation was getting about 10 complaints on unhygienic kitchens, the use of crystal salt, stale food, reuse of edible oil, and so on. With just two food inspectors, the municipal corporation was finding it tough to enforce rules effectively and take stringent action.
Now, with the government permitting the recruitment of 26 Food Safety Officers and 20 of them who were recruited by the TSPSC reporting for duty from Friday, the situation is expected to undergo a major change. The recruits will first undergo a 40-day training by the Food Commissioner.
During the training, they will learn all the aspects of how food is adulterated, the material used for adulteration, measures, and tests to detect adulteration, etc. This will be followed by administrative training on how to bookcases against errant management, how to take samples, submission of lab reports, serving notice to managements, etc, a GHMC official said.
Once the training is over, each circle will have one food safety inspector. Hyderabad being popular for hotels and food joints and its food culture as well, the role of food inspectors will be essential in making eatery managements adhere to rules, the official said, adding that with more food inspectors on the job, it will become easier for the public to lodge complaints as per their rights and ensure action is against establishments that flout the rules.
