Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Food Safety and Halal Food Authority's monitoring and evaluation department issued a detail report on Sunday over canteens situated inside the premises of different university's campuses.
The report suggests that water filtration plants to be installed/repaired inside the educational institutes. The report reveals that Peshawar Division teams with a mandate to ensure food safety, food hygiene and food standards, responded to online public complaints, raided over almost all canteens in both government and private sector universities in Peshawar.
"Fifteen universities and several other educational institutes were visited where more than Seventy-Eight on campus canteens were checked for food quality, premises and personal hygiene," report reads. It further says that all canteens were issued improvement notices; certain were fined on low-moderate level of food standards violation and some others were sealed due to major issues identified.
While commenting on the report, KP Food Authority director general Riaz Khan Mahsud told that four university campuses and several other colleges inside the campus of Peshawar University, are more vulnerable and students are left with no option but to take unsafe and unhygienic food. He furthered that concern quarters to be informed and warned about the alarming situations of their respective canteens failing which sever crackdown to be carried out wherever needed. He directed `director operation Khalid Khattak to take up the matter with concern institutes and let them know about the worst situation of their canteens.
Khalid Khan Khattak deputed a special team led by assistant director Dr Murad Ali for food surveillance of the campus. Director operations expressed that more than six hundred complaints been received from educational institutes out of which three hundred were traced and addressed at different canteens inside the campus. Giving details of the report, director operations told that no food safety and personal hygiene measures were observed at the campus canteens. The official maintained that not a single staff is being screened medically who may be a carrier of a communicable disease.
The report identified 1. Unhygienic water tanks, 2. unavailability/not functional water filter, 3. poor infrastructure condition of the premises, 4. unhygienic conditions in canteens/mess, 5. availability of banned food items i.e. non-food grade colours inside kitchens, 6. availability of sub-standard and expired food items, 7. poor personal hygiene of the food handlers, 8. provision of sub-standard food to costumers, and 8. unavailability of medical fitness certificates of the workers as the key issues. The report also appreciates Khyber Medical College canteens on turning up for remarkable improvement.