Eateries under scanner

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The city corporation is planning to intensify its raids to ensure only high-quality food is served and hygiene ratings are maintained at hotels in the city. 

After the raids conducted last month during which 20 hotels were served notices, the corporation carried out inspections in 59 eateries in the city in the past few days. Notices were served on 46 eateries.
"Hotels served with notices must respond in 15 days after rectifying flaws. If they don't, fines will be imposed. In the backdrop of recurring incidents wherein hotels do not maintain standards, we intend to continue surprise checks until safe and good-quality food is served," said K Sreekumar, the corporation's Health Standing Committee chairman.

Six teams under the Health Department conducted raids on hotels at Statue Junction, Palayam, Thampanoor, East Fort, Manacaud, Kamaleswaram and Karamana. "Gross violations detected included unhygienic environment in which food was prepared and selling stale food. We have been receiving a lot of complaints about hotels not adhering to food safety standards," said Ajith Kumar S, one among the health supervisors who led the squad.

Meanwhile, the district committee of the Kerala Hotel and Restaurant Association (KHRA)  plans to hold a meeting with the hotels that were served notices on Saturday."Those who were at fault need to rectify. This will be communicated at the meeting. But we are concerned about the manner in which raids are being conducted. How can food be considered stale without conducting tests? Such apprehensions will also be discussed and we we intend to hold a meeting with the mayor soon," said B Jayadharan Nair, president, district committee, KHRA.

"Instead of focusing solely on hotels, raids need to be conducted at shacks which are open at night. These food trucks do not follow food quality norms. This needs to be addressed," he said."For the past six months, we have been regularly allocating three days for conducting raids. The raids are conducted at night to focus on 'thattukadas' as well," said A K Mini, Joint Food Safety Commissioner (Enforcement).

Types of infraction
Notices are served if the hotels do not follow any of the 24 parameters set by the corporation under the Kerala Municipality Act (section 476). The types of infraction include storing stale food for sale, lack of facility to segregate waste, preparing food in unhygienic environment, unhygienic atmosphere at hotels and premises, presence of animals and birds in kitchens which can contaminate food, not maintaining hygiene on table tops and surfaces on which parottas are made, lack of health cards for hotel staff, lack of designated rooms to store food, stocking up plastic carry bags below permitted thickness, using unclean utensils to prepare food and leaving the prepared food uncovered which can get contaminated.

Recent raids
The corporation carried out inspections in 59 eateries in the city in the past few days. Notices were served on 46 eateries.