There are only five food inspectors for nearly 3,500 restaurants and cafes in the twin cities, excluding hundreds of roadside eateries. As gastric cases are increasing , the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation clearly has no resources to inspect the food and water quality in these hotels.
GHMC is mainly responsible for doing checks in hotels and restaurants in Hyderabad, for areas present under Ranga Reddy district, the quality checks must be done by the Institute of Preventive Medicine (IPM). But, sources reveal that while GHMC focuses mainly in Old City, giving other places in the city an omission IPM also fails to perform checks in the areas which are under its jurisdiction, restricting itself to rural areas of RR district.
Now, the GHMC has pursued permission to check samples from Ranga Reddy also along with more staff to perform the checks. At the same time, some random checks on eateries are started. During an informal inspection drive done in the Old City, the GHMC food inspectors recognized many unhygienic kitchens. The food was being susceptible to flies and dust and there were no water purification systems in most of the 28 small hotels which were inspected in Afzalgunj and Idibazar. The inspectors delivered notices to 19 of the 28 eateries. During January to April, the GHMC examined 877 eating points and identified flaws in 471 and they were issued notices for serving food of unacceptable quality. The food in 564 joints was identified to be unfit for human consumption.
The acute diarrhoeal disease (ADD) numbers have already reached maximum this year due to increasing contamination of drinking water. The GHMC alleges that officials are regularly monitoring the water quality reports received from the Water Board and the Institute of Preventive Medicine (IPM). The municipal corporation has also decided to check hawkers selling ‘ice golas’ and ‘sherbets.’ (Source: The Times of India)