FDA ropes in confectioners consumers in food safety inspection drive for festive season

Mumbai, Aug 13 (PTI) Ahead of the festive season, the Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has launched an inspection campaign to ensure hygiene and quality of food items, like sweets, and roped in confectioners and consumer representatives in this exercise, its top official said on Wednesday.
Festive season in Maharashtra will kickstart with the 10-day Ganesh festival from the end of this month. It will be followed by the Navratri festival, Dussehra and Diwali in September and October.
Talking to PTI after a meeting here, FDA commissioner Rajesh Narvekar said such an exercise was being carried out for the first time.
"Till last year, FDA implemented such drives through regulatory inspections conducted by our officials. This time, we have ensured that producers and consumers participate in our training sessions so that they also understand and adopt good practices," he said.
The first phase of the 'San Maharashtracha, Sankalp Anna Surakshecha' (Festival of Maharashtra, resolution of food safety) campaign began on August 11 and it will continue till October 25, during which at least 3,000 inspections are planned, Narvekar said.
With the support from Nestle's corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative, the first training session was held on Wednesday for food makers and consumer representatives, he said.
The festive inspection campaign aims to ensure that citizens get pure, clean and high-quality food during Ganeshotsav, Eid, Navratri, Dussehra and Diwali, when demand for sweets, modaks, snacks and prasad surges. The FDA will also hold hygiene workshops for sweet manufacturers, modak makers, women's self-help groups and Ganesh mandals, he added.
FDA secretary Dheeraj Kumar urged food business operators to strictly follow the law and appealed to citizens to report complaints about food quality to the agency's toll-free helpline 1800-222-365.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)