Food safety raids hit Kolkata restaurants and eateries over hygiene, stale food

Enforcement branch officials of the West Bengal government on Sunday carried out raids at restaurants and eateries across the state to check whether food safety rules and guidelines were being followed. The inspections covered a wide range of establishments, from high-end restaurants to roadside shacks.

The drive came soon after Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari’s remarks at the inauguration of Consumer Safety Week on September 1, when he said the state government was acting against food adulteration and the use of non-food-grade colour in consumables and sweets. He urged businesses to operate in a transparent and clean manner.

In Kolkata, several well-known restaurants in the Park Street area were among those inspected. Enforcement branch teams carried out detailed checks of kitchens, officials said.

Officials were also seen inspecting eateries from Kanthi in the southernmost part of the state to Jalpaiguri in the north. They checked whether establishments were following regulations on issues including pest control and whether stale food was being sold to customers. “Such visits to all these places where food items are sold will continue,” a government official in Jalpaiguri district said.

Adhikari said the government was taking action against unfair practices in the food business. Stating that some officials might have been complicit in allowing such practices, he said, “The whole system has become rotten.”

Officials said some of the big names in Kolkata’s food scene had faced action for reasons ranging from the use of poor-quality oil and poor hygiene to stocking fish and meat beyond their expiry dates. The statewide checks on Sunday were part of a wider push to enforce food safety norms across all kinds of eateries.