August 14: The Department of Food Technology and Quality Control is established to monitor and regulate food quality and hygiene. However, despite the government's efforts to maintain food quality and hygiene, the results are still not visible.

As per the progress report of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development for the fiscal year 2021/22, the department took legal action against 100 manufacturing companies producing inedible products in the last fiscal year. However, the number of people or firms producing inedible products in the market is still rising.

The report states that the number of cases in the review year increased by 15 percent compared to the previous fiscal year. After collecting samples of 4,660 food and grain items in the fiscal year 2021/22, the department registered cases against 115 companies under the Food Act, 2023, after discovering that the companies produced inedible items.

In the review year, the department had monitored food and grain markets, industries, hotels, restaurants, and fairs for 8066 times. From mid-October 2021, rapid pesticide residue testing laboratories were established at seven checkpoints in Terai and 56,338 samples of vegetables and fruits were tested for pesticide residues. Regardless of these measure, the department has failed to gain the trust of the consumers. The department is continuously stepped up action, but the consumers are not convinced since the black market is still flourishing.

The Food Act, 2023 was formulated to maintain the purity of food and safeguard health and comfort of the common people by ensuring that there is no adulteration of food.

If the charges against the defaulting companies are proved according to the law, Section  3  of the  'Food Act, 2023' has provision to punish  the operators of the company producing and selling contaminated food with imprisonment up to five years or a fine of up to Rs 50,000 or both.

Jyoti Baniya, president of the Forum for Protection of Public Interest said that the companies producing inedible food items is increasing despite increase in action by the department because its action is weak and ineffective. Lawyer Hari Prasad Dulal said that even though there are many companies in the market that produce food and beverages with no labels and the products are of low quality, illegal, contaminated, and unlicensed, the department hardly takes any legal action against majority of those producers.

The latest data released by the department has found that pulses, meat, vegetables, mixed spices and other spices, bread, curd, grains, processed drinking water, noodles, tea, lentil, ghee, imported mustard oil, cattle feed, vermicelli, honey, bakery items, wheat flour, rice, sweets, sunflower oil, caramel sauce, chicken feed, biscuits, dumplings, vegetarian sauce, vinegar among others are of relatively poor quality.

Along with the production of inedible items in the market, there is widespread adulteration of food.

The department informed that apart from making pudding from stale rice in the hotels, the traders are promoting black market by water with milk, low quality of rice with advanced variety of rice, other types of beaten rice with Taichin beaten rice, pure mustard oil with other types of oil, pure ghee with vegetable ghee, and honey with sugar syrup, etc.

The Consumer Protection Act provides that companies or individuals who adulterate food items can be imprisoned for a period of three to ten years. As per advocate Dulal, since the Act is weak, action should be taken under Sections 107, 108 and 109 of the Criminal Code instead.