MARGAO
Could anyone shed light on the status or fate of the world class food testing laboratory inaugurated at the SGPDA retail fish market by former Union Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu to test all type of foods, including fish, milk, vegetables, fruits and meat product?
Well, on January, 2019, post-formalin scare, the Union Minister had inaugurated the new office and laboratory complex of Export Inspection Agency set up by the Export Inspection Council at the SGPDA market complex in the presence of then Ministers, Health Minister Vishwajit Rane and TCP Minister Vijai Sardesai.
More than four years down the line the promised laboratory by the Export Inspection Council at the SGPDA retail market or the wholesale fish market is yet to take shape till date, for best known to the SGPDA or the government.
Suresh Prabhu had even gone to the extent of saying Goa will be one of the 13 coastal states in the country which will now have world class testing lab in the State, further adding that the quality of food certified by the Export Inspection Agency is accepted by countries such as Japan, USA and the European Union.
Take note, the office of the Export Inspection Council did take shape in the structure provided by the SGPDA, but plans to set up the laboratory came a cropper.
Whether the promised state-of-the-art laboratory by the Export Inspection Council will get a space in the renovated wholesale fish market remains unknown.
Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation (GSIDC), which is re-building the wholesale fish market, said the new market complex has a provision for a fish testing laboratory.
