BERHAMPUR: With fast food craze catching up with the Silk City people, a large number of joints have sprouted like mushrooms of late.Even as these joints are making roaring business, little heed is being paid to hygiene while preparing food. While substandard food colours and oils are being used for cooking, the food is not covered at most of the centres. Vegetables like onion, carrot and capsicum that are mostly used in the fast food are not rinsed in water before being used. Even the utensils are not cleaned properly. A large number of such eateries can be found at R L Tank Road and Badabazaar square. These violations, however, fail to evoke any action from the health department of the Berhampur civic body. Worse, although such eateries require licence for functioning, many of them are operating illegally under the nose of the BMC. As per reports, there are more than 3,000 eateries in the city but only 987 licences have been issued in the last five years. Besides, there are mobile eatery stalls and kiosks that have been functioning.“BMC does conduct raids and destroys food materials at these eateries, but that is only when allegations of health complications are made by people or an epidemic breaks out,” said Daitari Pradhan, a local. The BMC and the district health office have one food inspector each. However, both the posts are lying vacant for over a year now.
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