PFA serves notices to 950 eateries, imposes fines of Rs1.980m during drive

LAHORE: The Punjab Food Authority (PFA) has served warning notices for improvement to 950 eateries and penalized dozens of food points with Rs1.9805 million cumulative fines during a province-wide inspection operation. On the directions of the Punjab government, the provincial food regulatory body has been working day and night with full dedication to ensure the availability of healthy, safe and standard food across Punjab during Ramazan.

The food safety teams have inspected 1,530 food businesses in Lahore, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Rawalpindi, Sargodha, Bahawalpur, DG Khan and Sahiwal.

The authority not only imposed hefty fines or served warning notices but also stopped the production of seven food points besides lodging FIRs against violators in the respective police stations.

According to details, PFA examined 273 food outlets in Lahore while imposing Rs632,000 cumulative fine and issued 163 warning notices besides stopping the production of a food unit by imposing an emergency prohibition order.

In Faisalabad, PFA’s watchdogs imposed a fine of Rs256,000 and served warning notices for improvement to 142 Food Business Operators (FBOs) while inspecting 231 food points. Apart from that, the food authority raided a food point and stopped its production till further order.

The teams inspected 152 food points in Rawalpindi, 187 food outlets in Gujranwala, 155 eateries in Sargodha, 68 shops in Bahawalpur, 125 food businesses in DG Khan, 99 food units in Sahiwal and 141 food points in Multan.

Moreover, the dairy safety teams examined the quality of 300,331 litres of milk while inspecting 126 milk shops and 241 milk carrier vehicles in a daylong operation.

During the operation, the teams disposed of 2,935 litres of substandard and adulterated milk after proven contamination of polluted water and unhygienic ingredients. The Punjab Food Authority is constantly carrying out operations in the field to deliver healthy and safe food to the people.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023