Pune civic body staff relieved: room made for food samples

Senior officers of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) have at last woken up to the plight of the employees who are forced to share their office space with parcels of food samples.

Additional municipal commissioner, Naresh Zurmure, has ordered that a special room be set aside for storing the food samples. The allotted rooms are on the third floor of the PMC building, where the health department is located. The procedure for relocating the offices currently occupying those rooms is underway.

DNA in its July 15 edition (‘Rotting food samples plague health department’) had highlighted the plight of the employees of the health department, who were forced to share office space with the food samples confiscated by the food inspectors (FI) of the PMC and the Food and Drug Authority (FDA).

These samples were dumped in the room where the licence branch of the health department is located  and due to the unplanned manner of storage, they often started rotting.

Earlier, there was a separate room for food samples, but it was handed over to the vigilance department. In spite of repeated complaints, no new room was allotted to the health department.

Reacting to DNA’s report, Zurmure, held a special meeting with health officials last week. “I understood the problem faced by the department and immediately ordered handing over of four rooms to the health department,” he said.

These rooms will be used as offices for the FIs, storage room for samples and also for the special squad formed by the health department for proper implementation of the Pre Conception Pre Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prevention of sex selection) (PCPNDT) Act, 1994.