Ahmedabad food safety inspections at 15 Navratri garba venues covered 148 food stalls, but 41 stalls reportedly did not have the required food registration when checked by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation’s Health Food Department. Instead of shutting them, officials allowed the registration process to be completed at the venues, according to a report by Divya Bhaskar – Ahmedabad.
The inspections were conducted on the first night of the Navratri festival at locations where food was being sold to garba participants and visitors. AMC teams examined food quality, hygiene conditions and compliance with food safety requirements at the temporary stalls.
The municipal food department had previously announced that food stalls operating at garba venues would need to be registered. The report said that several stalls were found without registration during the inspection, despite the advance communication. The stalls were expected to be closed if they did not meet the registration requirement.
However, the report alleged that the department did not shut the unregistered stalls. Instead, officials facilitated the registration process at the location for the stall operators. The responsibility for ensuring that stall owners completed the registration was with the garba organisers, but the report said that this had not been done before the festival began.
The inspection also included testing of food products. The municipal teams collected 41 food samples from the stalls, according to the report. It further stated that 35 samples were tested through TPS and were found to meet the stated standards. The report did not provide a detailed breakdown of the samples, the testing method or the specific food items examined.
Temporary food markets at large public events create an additional enforcement challenge for city authorities because vendors operate for limited periods and serve large crowds in concentrated locations. Registration allows civic authorities to identify food businesses and establish responsibility for hygiene and food handling, while inspections are intended to check whether those requirements are being followed on the ground.
In this case, the inspection found a gap between the AMC’s registration requirement and the readiness of stalls at the venues. The reported decision to permit on-site registration allowed the stalls to continue operating while the compliance process was completed. The report did not state whether any penalties were imposed on the unregistered vendors or organisers.
The AMC inspection covered food stalls at 15 garba locations, but the report did not identify the venues individually. It also did not provide details of follow-up inspections, the number of stalls that completed registration on site or whether further action would be taken against organisers who failed to ensure prior compliance.
The Health Food Department’s inspection programme was conducted during the festival to check food quality, cleanliness and food safety compliance. Further enforcement steps, if any, were not specified in the report.
