The recent AMC crackdown has forced them to take to their heels; teams of officials raided shops and destroyed 2,548 litres of mango pulp and 1,430 kg of mangoes.
Fearing raids by AMC's central zone health inspectors, shop owners in the popular Kalupur fruit market fled their premises in the wake of a crackdown to bring an end to the menace of artificially ripened mangoes.
A prominent fruit market in Ahmedabad, Kalupur fruit market is thronged daily by thousands of customers and retailers who flock to buy mangoes and groceries there. To curb the use of carbide to artificially ripen mangoes, health officials are targeting shops and godowns for the past one week.
When the officials started inspecting the mangoes in the first few shops, the other stores were alerted and closed shop.
According to central zone's deputy health officer Bhavin Joshi, around 1000 kg of carbide ripen mangoes have been seized from the inspected shops. "Since carbide is widely used by fruit shop owners, they wanted to escape penalty and seizure of their mangoes," said Joshi. Roughly, there are around 200 such fruit shops in the Kalupur fruit market.
Health officials of other zones were also busy raiding pulp and fruit dealers across the city during the day. This pace of action can be attributed to health committee chairman Suresh Patel who on Monday directed all the 'lazy' health officials to strike hard on such vendors across the city who are playing with civic health.
He specifically told the officials to nab each and every mango dealer who is using carbide to ripen mangoes, or running illegal pulp making units in filthy conditions.
Different teams raided such shops and destroyed 2548 litres of mango pulp and 1430 kg of mangoes during the day-long operation. Inspectors also seized 1940 litres of mango pulp from them.
A total of 68 notices have been served to different units and officials collected Rs31000 as fine from them. Officials also took four samples of mango pulp and three samples of mango shake from juice shop owners under the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act.
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