Gandhinagar, Sep 16 (IANS) The Gujarat government has inspected 386 hostels and canteens across the state as part of a statewide food safety drive launched after a suspected food poisoning incident at a student hostel in Surat, with 194 food samples sent for testing and the licences of two establishments suspended.
Of the 386 facilities inspected so far, 100 are government-run, 71 are semi-government, and 213 are private. The authorities have issued 102 improvement notices, while 18 hostels or canteens voluntarily shut down to undertake cleaning and corrective measures.
Health Minister Praful Pansheriya said the inspections had uncovered unhygienic conditions in the kitchens of several hostels and warned that responsibility would be fixed if students fell ill because of negligence.
“Especially when cases of food poisoning occur inside hostels, the complete responsibility lies with the hostel, and such incidents happen because of their serious negligence,” Pansheriya said.
He said parents paid fees to place their children in private hostels, while the government incurred expenditure on government hostels, making it the responsibility of hostel management to maintain hygiene and ensure that stale or contaminated food was not served.
The inspections were ordered after around 85 students at the hostel of PP Savani International School in Surat complained of stomach pain and vomiting after dinner on September 13. The hostel housed around 2,200 students and staff.
According to reports, several students began experiencing symptoms a few hours after dinner and were taken to hospital for treatment.
The Surat Municipal Corporation collected food samples from the hostel kitchen for testing. The exact cause of the illness has not been established as food poisoning, with authorities investigating the incident and testing samples.
Reports said the dinner included paneer-mutter, roti, fried rice and buttermilk.
Following the Surat incident, Pansheriya directed officials to inspect student hostels across Gujarat, including government, semi-government, grant-in-aid and private facilities, to check compliance with food hygiene and safety procedures.
An earlier phase of the drive had covered 200 facilities, with 61 improvement notices issued, 114 samples collected, 10 establishments voluntarily shut and one licence suspended.
The latest figures take the inspections to 386 and the number of samples to 194.
Pansheriya said around 200 hostels had cleaned their kitchens after being found deficient during inspections, while licences of two establishments had been suspended.
“A lot of dirt and unhygienic conditions have been found in the kitchens of several hostels. Notices have also been issued to them to improve cleanliness,” he said.
The minister said the inspections would continue beyond the current exercise and extend to ashram schools as well.
He said establishments found violating food safety requirements in subsequent inspections could face police action and court proceedings.
“When the second round takes place in the coming days, we will file police cases and cases in the honourable court against them. If any of the 194 samples collected are found to be doubtful or adulterated, we will certainly file a case against that hostel in the honourable court,” he said.
He also said responsibility would be fixed on contractors supplying food to government hostels and on private hostel owners in the case of privately run facilities.
“If such negligence or food poisoning occurs anywhere in the future, the contractor who has taken the contract in a government hostel will be directly responsible, while in private hostels, the private owners will be responsible. No one will be able to escape responsibility,” he said.
Pansheriya said the inspection drive would continue until all hostels in Gujarat had been checked and that authorities would conduct raids wherever complaints were received, or similar incidents occurred.
He also called for hostel and school managements to constitute parents’ committees and involve them in monitoring kitchen hygiene.
“Every hostel owner, or every school where a hostel is being run, should have a parents’ committee. The parents should be called every week, the kitchen should be shown to them and it should be kept clean,” he said.
The Health Department will also hold discussions with the Education Department to bring hostels operating under its jurisdiction into the inspection and monitoring exercise.
–IANS
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