Maintain hygiene or face closure, minister tells hotels

Salem: Health and family welfare minister Ma Subramanian on Sunday said steps were being taken to shut the hotels not maintaining hygiene, while assuring to continue crack down on the eateries that lack facilities to preserve meat and other food items.
Referring to the death of a girl in Kerala after eating shawarma, he said the food safety officials were instructed to conduct surprise checks at the hotels, especially shawarma centres. “More than 1,000 hotels were fined so far for not keeping the facility neat and clean, and not preserving the food items properly.”
The minister visited the government hospital and vaccination camps at Yercaud along with health sectary Dr J Radhakrishnan on the day. The minister said 1.5 crore was allotted for setting up mortuary and autopsy facilities at the government hospital. “Wok will begin in a month.”
After inspecting the hospital, he said 50 lakh people were yet to take the first dose of vaccine against Covid in the state. According to him, 1.5 crore people haven’t taken the second dose of vaccine in the state. Subramanian said one lakh vaccination camps, the highest in the country, were set up across the state on the day.