Staff Reporter :
The fate of the draft Formalin Control Law-2013 with a provision of stringent punishment for indiscriminate use of the toxic chemical with foodstuffs, has become uncertain. The ministry of Commerce has been waiting for vetting of the draft law by the Ministry of Law for long. But it is yet to know its fate.
“We have prepared the draft of the law and sent it to the Law Ministry for its approval to check indiscriminate use of formalin with foodstuffs,”
Commerce Secretary Mahbub Ahmed told The New Nation on Wednesday. The draft law, he said, was sent to the Law Ministry during the time of the last government.
The recommendations of the draft law include unauthorised possession, use, production and import of and trading in formalin will lead to a maximum of 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment (RI) and imposition of fine amounting to Tk 5.0 lakh, he said.
The offenders will get double punishment for repeating the same crime under the proposed draft law. Talking to The New Nation the commerce secretary said during the last one year there has been no import of the chemical. We have received only one application for import of formalin. As the chemical has industrial use, so its import cannot be banned, he said.
Responding to a question how it is being so widely used as there was no import of the chemical for a year, he said, it might enter the country through smuggling.
Meanwhile, the anti-formalin campaign is yet to bring optimum results due to lack of proper monitoring by the concerned authorities , it is alleged. A BSTI mobile court led by a magistrate raided a market in city’s Uttara sector- 6 and fined sellers of formalin laced fish on Tuesday. Some people in city markets said the move to free the kitchen markets from formalin should continue so that people could buy unadulterated fish, fruits and vegetables.
Formalin is being used by as a preservative in fish, fruits, meat, milk, vegetables and a wide variety of food items. Consumption of such food items, according to medical scientists, may cause deadly diseases like cancers and liver cirrhosis, asthma, skin ailments and kidney damage.
About 50 per cent fish, meat, milk, rice, pulse, edible oil, spice and salt are adulterated with pesticides like aldrin, DDT, heptachlor, ethion, methoxychlor and heavy metals like lead and arsenic, revealed a research finding by National Food safety Laboratory of the Institute of Public Health (IPH). IPH found 2990 food samples out of 5759 adulterated following laboratory tests couple of years ago.
The IPH tests conducted last year found 187 food samples out of 377 adulterated, according to Abdus Sobhan, secretary, Save the Environment Movement. Excessive use of toxic chemicals like formalin,calcium carbide, sodium cyclamate, ethophen and hydrose in different food items including fruits, fish, poultry birds and several others food items in recent years, has become a matter of grave concern, he told the media.
Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institute (BSTI) and law enforcers were asked by the High Court (HC) in an order to monitor fruit depots across the country regularly to stop storage or sale of contaminated fruits. The HC also asked the police authority to file criminal cases under the Special Powers act, 1974 against those using chemicals to ripen or preserve fruits and sell those to consumers. The HC verdict was issued upon a petition filed by the Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh (HRPB). The HC also asked the National Board of Revenue (NBR) and the Customs to monitor land and sea ports to see to it so that contaminated fruits could not enter the country.
In rural areas, the farmers use poisonous pesticides and harmful chemical fertilizers in their crop fields. In the process a variety of vegetables at growers level get contaminated in the field, relevant sources said adding if the source of contamination should also be brought under monitoring. Otherwise, they said, checking adulteration of prepared food in which harmful chemicals or dyes have been laced without addressing the source of contamination, the desired result could not be achieved.
The government normally undertook legal actions under Pure Food Ordinance, 1959 against mixing toxic substance in food and Dhaka City Corporation and BSTI are responsible to implement the ordinance.
