Ghaziabad: Food dept conducts hygiene checks on 48 juice shops
The inspections came days after an alleged incident of mixing of urine in fruit juices at a shop in Loni sparked outrage earlier this month, leading to an FIR
Ghaziabad: The Ghaziabad food safety department conducted surprise inspections across the district at 48 fruit juice shops on Wednesday and Thursday for hygiene, and found four shops operating without any licence or registration, officials said on Friday, adding that the juice shop owners have been now asked to prominently display their licenses at their outlets.
The inspections came days after an alleged incident of mixing of urine in fruit juices at a shop in Loni sparked outrage earlier this month, prompting police to register a first information report at Loni Border police station.
On September 22, villagers also held a ‘Mahapanchayat’ (mega village meet) at Tila Morh and denounced the act allegedly involving suspects Amir Khan and his assistant Kaif. Both were beaten up by locals after some alleged videos of the incident came to light. Both were later arrested.
HT could not authenticate the veracity of the videos.
“After this incident, we decided to inspect juice corners across the district …Four of these shops were serving fruit juice without any licenses or registrations. We have initiated legal action against them and also asked them to procure licenses and comply with norms if they wish to operate further,” said Arvind Yadav, designated officer (DO) of food safety department.
The teams collected 20 samples from different shop which were inspected and the samples were sent for testing, the officer added.
The inspections were conducted across the district in Modinagar, Loni, Lajpat Nagar, Kaushambi, Kavi Nagar, Nehru Nagar, Rakesh Marg, Shalimar Garden, Bhopra, Indirapuram, Shipra Sun City (Indirapuram), Sanjay Nagar, Muradnagar and Arthala, among other locations, officials said.
“We have also specifically asked the juice shop owners to prominently display the licenses at their shops so that customers can know they are having items from a licensed shop. The inspections will continue further,” Yadav added.
The officials said that they estimate that the district has presence of over 300 or more shops serving fruit juice to customers.