EDITORIAL: People in the Hunza Valley, located in the northern region of Gilgit-Baltistan (GB), are known for their healthy and long lives, but those inhabiting other areas of that stunning mountainous region face health-related problems caused by controllable issues.
A press report quotes a local cardiologist as saying that the situation in GB’s remote areas is deteriorating as shady companies, without proper quality checks, transported from other parts of the country food products, cooking oil, biscuits, chips and other edibles.
Expressing similar concerns president of the GB Young Doctors Association said that the influx of substandard food items posed serious health risks to the people, adding that diseases such as cancer and diabetes had the highest ratio in the region – unsubstantiated, though, by any credible research survey.
According to some others, the proportion of gastrointestinal and heart diseases is higher in GB compared to other parts of the country.
Understandably, for quite a while the problem has been giving rise to anxiety and worry among the region’s people, leading to the enactment of the GB Food Act, 2021.
Heralded as a landmark achievement, the legislation extended the GB Food Department’s mandate beyond wheat to fostering best practices in all aspects of food production and distribution.
Also recommended was the establishment of a quality control authority, which remains ignored. The food department has hard time explaining the negligence as it made contradictory claims, saying on the one hand that it is implementing the quality assurance guidelines issued by the Pakistan Standards and Quality Controls Authority (PSQCA), and on the other hand that it checked food items only for their expiry date whereas laboratory tests were needed to examine the quality of ingredients used in them. What then seems to be the problem?
The government did set up a food testing laboratory, which charges Rs 1300 per sample and the process is time consuming. But it is as good as non-existent.
Reportedly, the food department has no budget to pay for various food samples’ testing. Besides, as pointed out by some responsible individuals, a single laboratory cannot cater to the requirements of a geographically scattered region like the GB.
Unscrupulous elements whether in GB or elsewhere in the country have no qualms about marketing all sorts of adulterated products, from toiletries to medicines. Just a few days ago, monitoring report of the Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources, based on bottled water samples collected from 20 cities across the country for quality testing as per the PSQCA’s criteria, found that as many as 27 brands of bottled water were unsafe for human consumption.
All such purveyors of substandard/contaminated water and food items should be handed exemplary punishment .Governments in the provinces, GB and at the Centre must give public health the priority it deserves.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
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