The state administration appears to be swinging into action after Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar’s return from New York. However, the recent cabinet decision to launch a massive operation against the hotel and food industry making health checks mandatory for all doesn’t really explain the narrative, especially when the State has failed drastically to keep an eye on the hygiene at the thousands of hotels, eateries and fast-food joints that dot the State.
Agreed there should be periodic health checks of the manpower involved in the hotel industry since they are in contact with the food that is served to the people. But this can’t be the end of the story. Health can never be a constant in anyone’s life and it would be a Herculean task to conduct regular health checks on over a lakh workers involved in the hotel industry. On the flip side, a one-time scan will be just an excise in futility.
Secondly, there are high chances that minor ailments which individuals encounter on a periodic basis will go unnoticed. And there are chances where workers will refrain from declaring their sickness for fear of losing their wages for the day. Even mechanism of health cards, like the one issued to migrant labourers, has met with little success.
The health checks must be held in tandem with more intense and aggressive raids by Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) teams scanning the level of hygiene. More than the workers engaged at the hotels, it is the unhygienic conditions prevailing in the kitchens and the surrounding that creates a health scare. It is because there are no checks we find cockroaches and even lizards in mid-day meals, risking the health of students. It is only because there are no checks we find ants, lizards and cockroaches feasting over uncovered food items at GMC canteens.
The FDA should understand the huge responsibility at hand and pick up pace. If three GMC canteens can be ordered to shut shop overnight, why can’t other food outlets be put under a scanner, showing the same urgency? Health checks cannot be selective or seasonal. If the government is serious about the welfare of the public and wants to curb unhealthy practices, the FDA has to play a more proactive role. If the FDA teams are not in a position to track the unhygienic state of affairs of the thousands of hotels and eateries across the state, then no mechanism will be in a position to keep a tab on the huge workforce.
If FDA has issued the licences, it’s their job to raise the level of awareness of hygiene and enforce it with full force, because it concerns the health of the people. In a recent case when a KTC canteen was raided, it was found that non-permissible colours were being used in eatables. This only raises serious question on the process of granting licences where hotels and eateries are not even made aware of the basic dos and don’ts.
