A worker in a bakery packing bakery items with uncut nails and dirty fingers. (Morung Photo)
Morung Express News
Dimapur | September 26
Next time you feel like dropping into your city’s favourite eating joints for a quick bite or lunch, think twice for the delicious looking meal on your table may actually do more harm than good to the body.
A surprise inspection carried out jointly by the Food Safety Staff (under CMO Dimapur), district administration, Dimapur Municipal Council (DMC) and police personnel on the city’s popular hotels, bakeries and restaurants, revealed the squalid and unhygienic condition of kitchens and the stench enough to make you retch.
In one restaurant near Holy Cross junction, cooks were seen preparing noodles in a kitchen strewn with water, vegetable peels and noodle crumbs with a cooking oil tin on the floor near the waste bin. In a bakery in the same locality, a worker with uncut nails and dirty fingers was busy packing buns. In the same bakery, his co-worker could be seen beating eggs near a clogged drain with flies buzzing around and sitting even on unpacked cakes and cookies.
In another bakery, a large rat rummaged the food waste bin in the kitchen unmindful of the workers taking a lunch break. Many of the squalid and cramped kitchens were also found using domestic LPG cylinders and not the commercial ones for cooking.
The raid carried out in Eros Lane, Deluxe Point and Super Market areas also reinforced an interesting fact known to majority of the city dwellers –many of the so-called restaurants and hotels were in reality booze joints and IMFL retail outlets.
Wednesday’s raid was carried out as per the order of the Deputy Commissioner Dimapur dated September 21, 2012, after it came to the notice of the district administration of instances of food adulteration and cases of food poisoning in Dimapur.
The raid team comprised of two groups –one led by Assistant Commissioner, Mohamed Ali Shihab (IAS probationer) and Food Safety Officer (FSO), Samuel Zehol and the other by PA to DC Dimapur, Bizo, and FSO Sendong Jamir.
After the raid, a meeting was held in the office chamber of Chief Executive Officer, DMC, Orenthung Lotha to discuss on the serious health hazard posed by unhygienic conditions of eating joints and remedial measures thereof.
Officers and staff of the various departments involved in the raid agreed to conduct similar inspections and raids once every two months. On use of domestic LPG by hotels, the CEO said he would intimate DC Dimapur to issue an order reiterating ban on use of domestic LPG in hotels and restaurants.
On the problem of clogged drains and sewage system, Orenthung admitted that this was the lookout of the DMC and assured that the municipal body would put efforts to improve the city’s sanitation and drainage.
The meeting also decided to issue stern warning to defaulting hotels, bakeries and restaurants to clean up their kitchens or face possible cancellation of their trade licence.
