MARGAO
After a nearly three-year-long wait, the Food and Drugs Administration’s South Goa branch office has been finally commissioned at the Old South Goa Collectorate building.
The office, however, will be purely dealing with administrative matters and does not play host to any food testing laboratory.
If FDA Director Jyoti Sardesai is to be believed, the South Goa branch office will be dealing with all administrative matters.
She said the food testing lab is not set up at the South Goa branch office when the FDA has a state-of-the-art food testing laboratory at the head office at Bambolim.
“Another food testing laboratory is not required in Margao when we have a well-equipped laboratory at Bambolim. Our inspectors and officials collect samples of food and get them tested at the Bambolim lab. The South Goa office will only deal with administrative matters,” Sardesai added.
The South Goa FDA branch office has started functioning on the second floor of the Old Collectorate building near the Margao Municipal building from Friday after a long wait.
Sardesai said most of the FDA’s administrative operations are now carried out online, with people not required to come to the offices for their official work.
She said FDA inspectors, who were hitherto, fanning out to various parts of South Goa will now operate from the South branch office.
“Right now, we have drafted the staff to man the South Goa branch office. The office will be headed by a Deputy Director. However, since the post has fallen vacant, the subordinate officer is presently holding charge of the office,” she said, adding that the post of Deputy Director would be filled up soon.
The FDA has been in the news over the last three years after the South Goa branch office set up at the Old Collectorate building was awaiting for commissioning. Though the Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation (GSIDC) had furnished the office with spacious cabins and other infrastructure, the office was not put to use for reasons best known to the FDA administrators and Health officials.
Asked whether the items installed by the GSIDC are satisfactorily given that the three-year defect liability is already over before the commissioning of the office, the FDA director shot back saying there is hardly any equipment in the office, other than an air conditioner, water filter which are all working in perfect condition.
