Kolkata Municipal Corporation teams discarded around 20kg of food items and collected samples from 40 food establishments and stalls during a food safety drive across Park Street, Russell Street and Middleton Street on Thursday, officials said.
The KMC health department teams inspected food stalls, sweet shops and restaurants, examining kitchens, stored food and raw materials, including spices used in preparation. A mobile food safety laboratory was deployed during the operation to conduct on-the-spot tests, while other samples were collected for laboratory analysis.
“Samples were collected from 40 establishments and stalls selling food items for lab tests. A mobile food safety lab on wheels was deployed during the drive for on-the-spot testing of the samples,” a senior KMC official said.
The discarded items included gravy stored in refrigerators and paneer. The official said food handlers were generally found maintaining better cleanliness than during earlier visits. The teams also instructed establishments that were not displaying their Food Safety and Standards Authority of India licences to put them on display.
One owner was served a notice and given seven days to make changes, including introducing date tags for stored food, raw materials and semi-cooked items, the official said. The requirement is intended to help establish how long food and ingredients have been held before use, though the KMC did not disclose the name of the establishment.
The Park Street drive is part of a series of inspections by the civic body ahead of Durga Puja, when food outlets and temporary stalls typically see increased activity. On Monday, KMC officials inspected more than 50 restaurants, stalls and roadside eateries in and around Acropolis Mall and Rajdanga Main Road in Kasba.
During that earlier drive, around 60kg of food items were discarded and a restaurant was served a notice. Tests reportedly found synthetic colours in two red chilli powder samples, metanil yellow in four turmeric samples and starch adulteration in one paneer sample.
Together, the inspections show the range of responsibilities involved in municipal food-safety enforcement: checking hygiene in commercial kitchens, examining raw-material storage, verifying FSSAI licensing and testing suspected adulterants. The operations also combine immediate disposal of food considered unsuitable with notices requiring establishments to correct specific practices.
The KMC official did not provide the results of the samples collected during the Park Street drive. The civic body’s next stated steps are the laboratory testing of those samples and follow-up action, including compliance with the seven-day notice issued to the establishment found in violation.
