No effective drive launched for months to check the menace

Rawalpindi
The district health department and the city district government have not launched any effective campaign for months to check sale of unhygienic foodstuff that is going on unnoticed in almost every locality of the town.
Not only vendors but also most of the local hotels, restaurants and bakers in town are providing unhygienic foodstuff and contaminated water to customers while the environment in which they are operating is also extremely unhygienic.
Along almost every road in town, a number of vendors can be witnessed selling contaminated foodstuff including hot drinks as they are operating in extremely unhygienic conditions in open.
The environment of town has already become heavily polluted because of ongoing development works and the dust containing numberless chemicals in air contaminates the foodstuff being kept on sale in open like ‘samosas’, ‘pakoras’, ‘jalaibi’ and ‘doodh jalaibi’.
Like every year, a number of vendors have set stalls along roadsides to sell chicken soup, ‘Yakhni’, green tea while a number of milk shops have been selling ‘doodh jalaibi’ in open since the setting in of winter and it can easily be witnessed that majority of these set ups are operating in extremely unhygienic conditions.
Officials at the district health department have expressed to ‘The News’ last month that the district health department could not launch an effective campaign to check sale of unhygienic foodstuff in the town because almost all its staff was busy in carrying out activities under anti-polio drives and to prevent and control dengue fever for months.
District Officer Health II (DOH 2) Dr. Tahir Ahmed expressed to ‘The News’ last month that he would work out a proper campaign and crackdown on urgent basis against local hotels, marriage halls, restaurants, shopkeepers and vendors selling unhygienic foodstuff.
His office that has services of only two food inspectors available carried out activities to check sale of unhygienic foodstuff in localities along Benazir Bhutto Road but the limited staff could not check the menace effectively.
Executive District Officer (Health) Dr. Khalid Randhawa when contacted by ‘The News’ on Wednesday said a comprehensive campaign would be launched to check sale of substandard and unhygienic foodstuff from next week and he would himself supervise the activities being planned.