IN a report submitted to the High Court Division on Tuesday, Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution said it has barred production and marketing of bottled and jarred water by 10 companies. At the same time, licences of seven of the companies have been suspended and licences of the three other companies have been cancelled. As per the list, the punished companies are well-known and majority people trust them about their products. The BSTI submitted the list in response to the HC’s directive to inform it by February 24 what action was taken against the five companies for marketing unsafe drinking water.
The HC Bench after hearing a public interest litigation writ petition of a Supreme Court lawyer directed BSTI to test of bottled water sold across the country and submit the findings. The same HC Bench has also instructed Bangladesh Food Safety Authority (BFSA) to submit a report on what actions they have taken for food adulteration and what is their jurisdiction by March 3.
The very high extent of food adulteration should not be avoided when highest authority of BFSA shows their frustration over the current situation. Sources said a syndicate has imported a huge quantity of chicken from Brazil, sheep from Ethiopia, buffalo from India without any clearance of Department of Livestock. Most worrying matter is that, all the items were date-expired. The destination of the meat was capital’s posh restaurants and chain shops, if these were not stopped at Chattogram Port. Whereas all the food items are available in our country. We can’t understand how the syndicates could get chance to import such low-standard foods dodging the security checking of different intelligence and law enforcing agencies. These syndicates are taking advantage as there are no rules and regulations on import of food products in the country.
What true is that, adulteration of food has become a national issue in the recent time. Actually, the problem is not merely human rights issue; rather it’s endangering public health seriously with numerous acute and chronic diseases. There is no doubt that, country’s future generation will be seriously affected with vulnerable physical and mental growth inflicted by food adulteration, if strong steps could not be taken against it. First of all, it needs formulation of rules-regulations for food products import.
