Angul: In Odisha’s Angul, packaged food items and soft drinks are allegedly being sold even after their expiry dates have passed by. By doing so, the businessmen are raking the moolah paying little or no heed to consumers’ health. A recent incident has corroborated the allegations.
A person had bought ten bottles of a soft drink from a reputed national company from a milk booth located at a bus stand two days ago. Unfortunately, before leaving the booth he forgot to check the expiry dates. At a formal party, five youths started consuming the beverage. After finishing half of the bottle, one of them felt a kind of weird taste not associated with the particular beverage.
After checking, they came to know that the soft drinks they were gulping down had expired since August.
The bottle carried March 27, 2020 on it as the packaging date. The expiry date printed on it was August 27. By the time when it was detected that all the ten soft drink bottles had expired, three of the five youths had already emptied their bottles. Later they complained of severe stomach ache.
When confronted by the youth who had bought the bottles, the shopkeeper turned him down saying he never sells expired products. After much pestering, the shopkeeper allowed him to check other bottles and then it was found out that he had numerous expired soft drinks from that particular company.
If this is the situation in Angul town itself, the one in rural pockets can well be imagined.
When contacted, executive officer, Angul municipality, Binod Chandra Panda said they cannot do anything in this regard as they do not have such an officer to examine food quality. What we can do is we can seal a shop after getting a certificate saying the shop is selling food items not fit for consumption from the public health officer at the DHH.
When asked, public health officer, Harapriya Behera said raids are being carried out at regular intervals. “But we have no information about the particular shop selling expired products. If a complaint is lodged with the CDMO against the shopkeeper, action will be taken against him.
Some town dwellers expressed their astonishment for the public health officer waiting for a complaint to conduct a raid on the shop in question.
PNN