Kolkata: The Kolkata Muncipal Corporation (KMC) has decided to initiate a police case against 20 odd restaurants situated in and around the New Market area in Central Kolkata, for flouting food safety norms. The KMC will also urge the factories in the city that manufacture industrial ice to put a specific colour as a mark of demarcation to indicate that it can only be used for preservation purpose and not in food and drinks.
“Some known and popular restaurants were found with unhygienic kitchens and mixing metallic yellow colour in some dishes. Many of them also did not possess food safety license. We will initiate police cases against 20 such restaurants,” member mayor in council (health) Atin Ghosh said. They were slapped with notices a few months ago, but continued to flout food safety standards.
Mr Ghosh, along with his team of food safety officers, organised a drive at more than 100 shops and restaurants. The team destroyed huge chunks of industrial ice and two large containers of Biriyani that was cooked with artificial colour and posed serious health hazards. Mr Ghosh will visit an ice-manufacturing unit at Rajabazar area on Tuesday and will urge the owner to put a specific colour on ice for industrial use as it is mostly used for preserving deadbodies and is unfit for consumption. He however said that after such raids on the part of KMC, a number of shops in the area had started using ice cubes instead of industrial ice.
“Such raids should be carried out by the councillors at the ward level and the borough level for better results. However, in spite of our writing to the borough chairmen, only two of the 16 boroughs have undertaken drives against adulterated food or industrial use,” a KMC food safety officer said.
