Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority (PSQCA) apparently failed to ensure quality products for the consumers in Ramazan as the Authority has not taken any prompt actions against illegal and substandard products available in the markets, it was learnt on Monday.
Insiders told Business Recorder that though the PSQCA in view of fast approaching Ramazan should have launched comprehensive campaign against the sale of inferior quality food stuff, it did not bother to do so. Sources said that PSQCA was constituted to help protect the health and safety of the consumers by ensuring availability of high quality eatable items, but the authority has miserably failed to curb the sale of sub-standard products across the country.
They said that as per PSQCA Act, all those products which are on the compulsory items list of the Authority must be registered and approved by PSQCA. Or else the authority could take stern actions against the people involved in manufacturing, supplying and selling these illegal and sub-standard products, they added.
An official of the PSQCA, on the condition of anonymity, told this scribe: "Although the officials concerned claims to have been conducting campaigns every now and then for better implementation of quality standard in the country, the fact is that due to ineffective lab testing structure, lack of expertise and irregularities within the organisation, it is quite difficult to ensure quality benchmark for the protection of health and safety of the consumers." He said that PSQCA is responsible to insure quality of some 78 mandatory products including apple juice, balanced feed mixture for live stock, vanaspati ghee, butter, carbonated beverages, chilly powder, concentrated fruit juices, condensed milk, curry powder, edible sesame seed oil, food for infants and children, flavoured milk, fruit squashes, honey, iodised salt, jams and jellies, margarine, mayonnaise, marmalade, milk powder (whole and skimmed), natural mineral water, orange juice, and bottled drinking water etc.
Health experts believe that mushroom supply of unregistered and substandard drinking water and beverages tantamount to further deteriorate the society's health as most of the Karachiites often suffering from water-borne diseases, especially during summer season.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for the PSQCA, Abdul Waheed Memon, claimed that the Authority was fully committed to maintaining quality products in the market and to eliminating sub-standard food and beverages. He said that a comprehensive plan was being chalked out to conduct raids during Ramazan on all those involved in manufacturing and selling illegal and `fake' products in different markets during Ramazan.
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