JAIPUR : Jaipur’s families are buying sweets for Diwali. Food safety inspectors went looking for what lies behind the glass counter, and found plenty.
A team raided two outlets of Rawat Misthan Bhandar, on Ajmer Road and at Narayan Singh Circle. Inspectors reported insects and flies in chocolate and bakery items, with packaging that carried neither expiry nor manufacturing dates.
At the Ajmer Road shop, packaged sweets on the counter and in the chiller lacked the mandatory labelling, as did prepared items. Dead cockroaches and flies lay under the bakery counter, and food residue and dirt coated the floor where sweets were made. Raj kachori and dahi puri were being served on newspaper. Live and dead insects turned up in hazelnut milk and roasted choco-almond handcrafted chocolate in cold storage, packed under the establishment’s own name without the information the Food Safety and Standards Act requires.
At Narayan Singh Circle, the team found a restaurant running without a valid food licence. Expired pizza toppings, bread, pav, fruit cocktail, chana masala, baby corn, chilli sauce, green tea, sweet corn and cream were being used to prepare food.
The department’s response was swift. It ordered the restaurant shut immediately, barred it from making samosas and kachoris or repacking food until proper licences are obtained, and destroyed the expired stock. Samples of kesar pista barfi, exotic dark chocolate and cashew-pistachio rolls were sent for testing.
Inspectors who walk into crowded festive-season shops to protect the public deserve credit. Their findings are a reminder that a famous name guarantees nothing.
INSECTS IN THE CHOCOLATE, FLIES IN THE BAKERY: FOOD SAFETY TEAM RAIDS RAWAT MISTHAN ON DIWALI EVE
