Hyderabad: Be it food served on trains by South Central Railway or imports and exports of Customs department, or food samples picked up from restaurants and processing units in Telangana State and Andhra Pradesh, the only testing lab is the State Food Laboratory at Nacharam here. It gets on an average 1,000 samples a month, but has been overburdened and understaffed.
The SFL has been suffering with minimal staff and lack of equipment as half of the 40 Junior Public Analyst and Junior Scientific Officer posts are vacant.
Several senior officials have retired in recent times and there is no new intake.
As SFL is part of the Institute of Preventive Medicine, and placed in the 10th Schedule organisation, neither AP nor TS is concerned over its fate.
The two government’s apathy has resulted in a situation where its functioning is affected while private labs are taking advantage and minting money. They are charging a fee of a few thousands for tests for which the state lab charges no more than Rs 500. Even individuals can send in their food samples to the lab for a check.
SFL Nacharam’s in-charge chief public analyst N Ravindra explained, “We are the only state food lab that got NABL accreditation.
Around 100 samples come from SCR. They send us samples of biscuits, soft drinks sold on platforms, as well as oils and dals used in railway canteens, and food served on trains by pantry cars. We do a chemical examination of these.
Usually those samples sent by SCR are put in formalin, due to which they are unfit for microbiological examination.
“GHMC food inspectors and departmental food inspectors of 23 districts who have been given a minimum quota of 12 samples to be lifted per month, as also local bodies and municipalities, send us the samples,” he told this newspaper.
Sources in IPM said that out of 22 junior analysts, 11 posts are vacant and the Warangal regional lab has no analyst.
