Sensitize street food vendors about sanitary, hygienic practices: Comm Food Safety

Srinagar, Sep 05: In order to sensitize street food vendors with regard to health, hygiene, food handling, food safety, personal hygiene, cart hygiene, cleaning and chemicals, pest control, garbage disposal and entrepreneurship, a meeting was chaired by Commissioner, Food Safety, Dr Abdul Kabir Dar, in which among other officers, Manager, Corporate Affairs, Nestle India Harvinder Singh Ranhotra, also participated.
Realizing the fact that street food vendors are not only a source of traditional food but have also bearing on the tourism sector of the State, besides it is an important source of employment for a large number of urban, poor, unemployed, skilled/semi-skilled population with small financial inputs, knowledge and practice.
It was decided that a special drive of training and sensitization of 500 street food vendors will be undertaken on 11/12th of October, 2018 both at Srinagar and Jammu. The training module which will focus on raising awareness of hygiene and food safety practices to help in preventing and controlling food-borne diseases in the State, besides enhancing entrepreneurship livelihood and micro and small business operators through the consistent safe delivery of food and increased turnover of tourists who love Kashmiri and Dogri traditional food cultures.
State Commissionerate of Food Safety, Nestle India Ltd. and NASVI (National Association of Street Vendors of India) have joined hands to start this innovative programme. The training programme shall be held across J&K in a phased manner and the participants will be provided with Food Safety Kits and certificates on successful completion of the said training.
Commissioner, Food Safety, J&K instructed all the enforcement authorities for starting a special drive for registration of street food vendors and also vigorously start checking of all the food business outlets including street vendors so as to provide wholesome and safe food to the public.