Mumbai: Food and Drug Administration to crack a whip on juice centres

The state's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) department is planning to start collecting samples from juice centres and ice manufacturers soon. Due to the Lok Sabha election duty, there is a lack of manpower in the FDA to inspect the street juice centres across the city in order to collect water and ice samples.

Shailesh Aadhav, assistant commissioner, FDA (Food), said, "We haven't yet started collecting the samples this summer season. We have less manpower due to the upcoming election's duties but we will soon be starting an inspection drive in the city to inspect the water and ice used by the street vendors across the city."

A senior FDA official said that around 95 per cent of the FDA officials are busy in the election due to which there is a lack of manpower to conduct inspections.

Last year, FDA had instructed that non-edible ice should be given 'blue' colour.

Dr Padmaja Keskar, BMC executive health officer, said, "The implementation of giving a blue colour to non-edible ice can't be seen in the Mumbai area."

The FDA came up with the guidelines of colouring the non-edible ice 'blue'. It is not applicable to the manufacturers who produce food-grade ice to mark it as edible for consumption. The 'blue' colour ice will be only for industrial use and as a preservative.

Dr Pallavi Darade, FDA Commissioner, said, "Few districts like Beed and Jalna have started implementation the ice colours. We haven't received a detailed report from Mumbai. We are inspecting and working on the implementation."