Hotels in Raja Bazaar serving unhygienic food

Rawalpindi
The owners of the majority of hotels and restaurants in Raja Bazaar are playing with the lives of public providing unhygienic food to customers as the concerned authorities have not been giving due attention to this serious issue.
The concerned departments are not starting any kind of action against hotels and restaurants selling unhygienic food in Raja Bazaar.
Neither District Health Department nor Tehsil Municipal Administration (TMA), Rawal Town, has launched any effective campaign to check sale of unhygienic food for a long time. A number of senior officials are of the view that the main focus of the health department and TMAs was prevention and control of dengue fever for the last many months because of which the issue of sale of unhygienic food has not been given due attention.
According to the information collected by this scribe from the Town Municipal Administration (TMA), Rawal Town, there are around 200 big and small hotels and restaurants in Raja Bazaar.
Also there is not a single laboratory operating in Rawalpindi region to check quality of food and water being served at food outlets.
The worst situation of food quality was in hotels established near Raja Bazaar Parking Plaza, hotels in front and along Bara Market, near Narankari Bazaar, near Dalgaran Bazaar, Trunk Bazaar and several other points. The hotel owners are selling unhygienic food at high prices and looting public at their will, but the concerned authorities are keeping mum over the situation.
Rawal Town (Administrator) Imran Ahmed Qureshi has claimed that in a few days, they would launch a comprehensive campaign against food outlets operating in unhygienic conditions in Raja Bazaar. He admitted that hotels and restaurants are selling unhygienic food items at higher prices. "We along with District Health Department would start a crackdown in a few days," he assured.
According to Mudassar Alam Tahirkheli, manager governance at Consumer Rights Commission of Pakistan, 70 per cent of the food available in the market is adulterated and 52% of mineral water available is unsafe for drinking. Though sale of contaminated food or beverages is an offense in Pakistan under consumer laws, most food producers continue to use substandard raw materials such as contaminated water and inferior food colours, flavours, fats and oils because there is weak implementation of laws and a virtually non-existing integrated legal framework for food safety.
Talking to ‘The News,’ people criticised the owners of hotels and restaurants in Raja Bazaar and said that they are playing with the lives of public.
Muhammad Yaseen Qureshi, a consumer, taking lunch at a hotel near Raja Bazaar Parking Plaza said that he came from Zafarwal. He has ordered for a chicken plate and three ‘rotis’. But he was shocked to see the quality of chicken plate. He said that the hotel owner charged Rs350 from him for poor quality and quantity food.
Another consumer, Bina Murad, said that she was hungry but she cancelled her order when she saw the dirty kitchen of the hotel. It seemed that they were preparing food for animals not for human beings, she said.