MARGAO
Where’s the state-of-the-art food testing laboratory inaugurated by former Union Minister Suresh Prabhu close to two years ago in the SGPDA market complex? Has the laboratory started testing fish for formalin or fruits ripened with chemicals? Or, is the “non-existent laboratory” confined to the SGPDA’s record books and has died a natural death even before its commissioning?
On January 27, 2019, then Union Minister Suresh Prabhu had inaugurated the non-existent state-of-the-art food testing laboratory at the SGPDA, while then TCP Minister Vijai Sardesai had gone to the town tom-tomming the food testing lab would be an answer to fish laced with formalin and sold in the wholesale fish market.
It would be two years and three months from now and the food testing laboratory continues to remain non-existent. Leave alone the building space taking shape, the very location of the proposed food testing laboratory is not finalized yet. And, if the SGPDA Chairman, MLA Wilfred D’Sa, is to be believed, the PDA may not even pursue the project on grounds that the laboratory may not meet the fish testing requirements in the market.
At the time of the inauguration of the laboratory with much fanfare, the SGPDA had agreed to provide space in the retail fish market to the Export Inspection Agency (EIA). The PDA later changed the location of the site to the wholesale fish market on the plea that a laboratory there would help check traces of formalin in fish.
The issue over the location of the laboratory did not end there. Though the wholesale fish market was to be the home for the proposed fish testing laboratory, officials of the agency later approached the SGPDA with a plea that the market, notorious for its stink and filth, was not conducive to host the laboratory and that the PDA make available land in the retail fish market.
It’s now months since the SGPDA had deliberated on the EIA representation and had even taken a decision at the authority meeting to make available space in the PDA retail market for the proposed laboratory.
When The Goan called up SGPDA Member Secretary Vertika Dagur to shed light on the status of the proposed fish testing laboratory, the senior PDA official said the matter has not moved forward since the time the authority had offered land in the retail market near the Sulabh toilet block.
“After the SGPDA had reverted the decision to set up the food testing laboratory in the wholesale fish market, the PDA had offered a portion of land in the retail market to the agency to set up the laboratory. Maybe, the new location did not find favour with the EIA officials as a result of which the matter has not moved forward to date,” the PDA member Secretary stated.
The PDA Member Secretary, however, reminded that the planning body has got the FDA to conduct fish testing in the wholesale fish market, further adding that provision has also been made for a fish testing lab in the plan for the redevelopment of the wholesale fish market.
SGPDA Chairman, MLA Wilfred D’Sa, was more forthright in saying that apart from the issues relating to the location of the lab, the PDA later found that the proposed lab was to test only food meant for export and not specifically to meet the requirements of the PDA. “Goans wanted the food lab to test fish and other food consumed by them. But, we have now realized that the lab was supposed to test food meant for exports, thus not serving the local purpose,” he said.
D’Sa, however, said the PDA has made a provision for a fish testing lab in the wholesale fish market redevelopment plan.
