the goan I network
PANAJI
The State government on Sunday directed the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) to put in public domain all the tests it had conducted on fish samples as the ‘formalin in fish’ public health scare continues to affect the confidence of the public over safety of the staple.
The FDA was also provided police security at its Bambolim complex after the government received specific intelligence inputs of possible public outrage against the agency.
Goa has seen chaos in its fish market since Thursday last when FDA raided outstation fish consignments and tests revealed traces of formalin in fish samples.
Knee-jerk reaction of the administration to the public health scare that followed added to the confusion over the next two days.
On Saturday, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar stepped in to issue instructions to the FDA to pull up its socks and announcing that he was “personally monitoring” the
issue in a bid to reassure the public.
Local fish markets across the state have seen scarce business with the local populace omitting the staple from the lunch and dinner plates.
Meanwhile, sensing a possible public outrage police security has been put in place around the FDA premises at Bambolim as a precautionary measure.
“There are inputs that some people will try to enter the FDA premises”, said a police officer from the Agassaim police station.
Meanwhile, the FDA made public the report of its Senior Scientific Officer (Food) Chandrakant Kambli in which he explains his use of the term “within permissible limits” for the findings of the qualitative tests done at the Bambolim laboratory on Thursday evening.
Kambli’s 10-page report states that based on scientific information that formaldehyde up to 2.95 ppm naturally occurs in fish, he opined that the tested samples were found to contain formaldehyde “within permissible limits.”
