Meeting held in the chairmanship of Commissioner MCGM
In a meeting chaired by Commissioner, MCGM, Shri Bhushan Varsha Ashok Gagrani and attended by officials of FSSAI and FDA in the lead of CEO, FSSAI Shri G Kamala Vardhana Rao, strategies for ensuring safer street food were discussed. The meeting focused on elevating Mumbai’s street food to global safety and hygiene standards by exploring the development of Healthy and Hygienic Food Streets (HHFS) in the city.
Representatives from Thane, Nagpur, Nasik, and Pune Municipal Corporations, who are instrumental in developing Healthy and Hygienic Food Streets, also attended the meeting.
In the meeting the issue of ensuring safe, healthy and sustainable food was discussed for the food being sold by Street Food vendors. Just as the theme of Har Ghar Tiranga, orange colour shall ensure safe, white shall ensure healthy and green shall ensure sustainable food.
Shri Gagrani said that Mumbai is renowned for its vibrant and diverse street food culture, which attracts both locals and tourists. He said that stringent training of street food vendors would ensure wide-scale availability of safe street food in the city, making it even more popular.
Shri Rao said that FSSAI’s Food Safety Training and Certification (FoSTaC) programme equips food handlers with the knowledge of the latest food safety and hygiene practices. Shri Rao also said that FSSAI is significantly scaling up training programmes across the country, which would also see a large increase in the number of trained street food vendors in Mumbai.
Dr. K.H. Govindraj, Principal Secretary, Urban Development Department and Ms. Pritee Chaudhary, Regional Director, FSSAI West Region also attended the crucial meeting held on 13th August 2024, to discuss strategies to strengthen food safety measures in the city.
Replying to a query regarding registration of street food vendors by Shri Gagrani, the FSSAI CEO said that registration of food handlers is carried out as part of the FoSTaC programme. Shri Rao also said that training of street food vendors is an integral part of the development of Healthy and Hygienic Food Streets. Strategies for collaborating to organize large-scale training and awareness programs in Mumbai were discussed during the meeting.
Welcoming an assurance by Shri Rao to deploy additional mobile food testing vans, known as ‘Food Safety on Wheels’ (FSWs) in Mumbai, Shri Gagrani said that this initiative will further empower consumers as they will have easy access to get food items tested. Shri Rao said results for most of the tests carried out in the FSWs are provided to consumers on-the-spot and within a short duration. He said that FSWs would be able to reach all markets in Mumbai in the similar way as FSWs are currently being deployed in many markets across Delhi ahead of the upcoming festive season.
