PFA releases annual performance report of Technical and Operations Wings

Provincial food regulatory body seals 5,013 food points, imposes hefty fines on 27,259 FBOs.
 
PFA Medical Screening Lab screens 58,079 food workers for different diseases, declares over 4,000 workers sick.
 
Lahore, December 30, 2019: The Punjab Food Authority (PFA) has released its Operations and Technical Wings Annual Performance Report 2019 with media for the public interest on Monday. In the report, the authority has covered the activities of field operations teams and three sections of Technical Wing including Food Lab, Medical Lab and Trading School.
 
According to the annual report, as many as 5,013 food businesses were closed down and 27,259 food business operators (FBOs) penalized with hefty fines over violations of the provincial food law. Meanwhile, the provincial food regulatory body had examined 8,897 food samples in the fully equipped with modern technology food labs in 2019.
 
While sharing the statistics of the report, PFA Director General Irfan Memon told only 4901 samples of different food companies had remained successful to meet the food standards while remaining 3,996 (44.9 percent) food samples were found failed in laboratory tests. As well as, the PFA Medical Screening Lab had conducted medical screening tests of 58,079 food handlers/workers amongst more than four thousand people found ill during the year. Out of 58,079 people, 2319 were suffering from Typhoid, 836 people Hepatitis C virus (HCV), 690 people suffering from Hepatitis B virus (HBV), 166 people from Tuberculosis (TB) and one person from AIDS disease. The director general said that the Punjab Food Authority would not allow any sick worker to do directly participate in the preparation of food.
 
He further said that the authority had inspected 389,413 food points in a year amongst stopped the production of 3,874 production units and eateries along with served warning notices to 302,023 FBOs. The food safety teams had visited 124,067 food outlets in Lahore Zone, 155,602 in Rawalpindi, 63,240 in Multan and 46,192 food joints in Muzaffargarh Zone of South Punjab, out of 389,413. Further, licenses of 54,121 food points were applied by FBOs with the help of operations teams, the report said.
 
PFA’s dairy safety teams were also inspected 14,531 milk vehicles and 150,73 shops to check the adulteration in milk, hygiene issues and food safety standards. Furthermore, the provincial food regulatory body had disposed of 397,023 tainted milk and discarded 27,695kg loose spices.
The PFA Trading Schools also achieved several targets by arranging awareness workshops and training sessions across Punjab. In 2019, 31,557 people have been facilitated in PFA Training Schools established in 26 Districts of Punjab. In level one training course, 29,749 people while in level two training course 1,828 people had been trained efficiently. Furthermore, 1244 training workshops had been arranged up to the district level to target the maximum workers. Similarly, 26,321 food handlers had been trained free of cost and informational literature had also been provided for their guidance in the following year 2019.
 
Irfan Memon said that PFA is bringing more new laws to meet international food standards. While the authority is struggling day and night to make healthy Punjab as per the vision of Punjab government, DG said, adding PFA is also trying hard to make strict rules as punishment against the violators especially adulterators.
 

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