Dear one,

While wishing you a good day I take this opportunity to inform you that although the citizens can definitely think that the efforts of a Government should be / are sufficient enough to ensure compliance of every provision of every law of the land yet they are well aware also that they themselves too can contribute something for that purpose. The world is of course all beautiful when all the human beings follow the relevant laws applicable to them. This is true in case of the Government employees / office bearers also. It may not be out of place to mention that the laws of the land have a definite message for every citizen but because every society has a self balancing / check and balance system, the law makers - the law enforcing set up and – the citizens, all of these have to work in unison. While  Food Safety and Standards Act 2006 has been implemented it assigns  certain functions to the law enforcing set up i.e. particularly the Designated Officers and Food Safety Officers etc.,  the Act has empowered a purchaser also to take a sample of an article of food. The right under Section 40 of the FSS Act 2006 can be exercised by following the same procedure as is prescribed for the food inspector(s). You may like to exercise your right(s) accordingly yourself too i.e. without depending wholly upon the Food Safety Officers(s) who have a whole sub-division each as their area of jurisdiction and whose attention is most of the times divided towards their multifarious activities, some times unnecessarily also.

As a part of the initiatives at the headquarters of the directorate–

(1) Free of cost, spot demonstration tests, for all the people, of 20 articles/types have been started to be carried out at the headquarters situated at A-20 Lawrence Road Industrial Area, Ring Road, Delhi; you may go through the details of the 20 articles/types by surfing the citizen’s corner of this web-site and avail of the facility provided by this Department.  These being demonstration tests, the report is of course oral; but the on-payment facility for getting the tests conducted continues as usual and in case the sample got analysed by a purchaser or a recognized consumer association is found adulterated, the fees deposited by him / her becomes refundable to him / her.

(2) A telephone number 27153921 has been earmarked for complaints / information control purposes; you may use this facility if there is no response from theDesignated Officer pertaining to your area. The particulars of the Designated Officers  pertaining to your area are also available on the web-site. The in charge Designated Officers of this control telephone does also have the information about the brand(s) of articles of food(s) that have been found as adulterated in the past, which you may inquire about.

(3) With effect from 5-08-2011, the Honourable High Court of Delhi has made the designated court for the cases under the FSS  Act 2006 as an exclusive one; this will lessen the time taken in the judicial proceedings to a big extent. As the punishment provided under this Act extends from the minimum of six months imprisonment to maximum of the life imprisonment, all the purchasers and the vendors can take a due note of it and spread also the same appropriately.

(4) Information feed back facility on the departmental web-site has also already been made functional; you may also feel free to give your free and frank communication(s) to this Department 

(5) With effect from 5-12-2008, prohibition had been imposed on the sale, offer for sale and exposure for sale of the Chinese dairy products in the Union Territory of Delhi.

(6) Direction has been issued for display of the brown / green dots on the receptacles of the non-vegetarian / vegetarian foods.

(7) Directions have repeatedly been given to the Local (Health) Authority i.e. the present Sub-Divisional Magistrate for taking action against artificial ripening of fruits and artificial colouring of vegetables.

It is hoped that the information available on these pages will be useful to you.

Yours,


 Commissioner Food Safety, Delhi