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Have street food at your own risk: PGI study

CHANDIGARH:Have street food at the risk of your own health as a PGI study has found that 90 per cent vendors do not wash hands with soap and 80 per cent have poor food hygiene in Chandigarh.

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Sandeep Rana

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 16

Have street food at the risk of your own health as a PGI study has found that 90 per cent vendors do not wash hands with soap and 80 per cent have poor food hygiene in Chandigarh.

A total of 400 random street food vendors were interviewed in the research. It came to light that 80 per cent vendors have poor food hygiene, which means they have long nails and long hair. They were accepting currency notes with the same hands they were cooking without washing or using gloves. Sanitation was also not proper around their work station.

Even minimum standards of hygiene were not adopted. The research also found that only 10 to 12 vendors were washing their hands properly. Even those washing their hands were not using soap. Ninety per cent of them did not have dustbins. Around 95 per cent vendors do not use aprons, caps and gloves.

“There is no information about the source of ice that the vendors use. If not used hygienically, ice can lead to food-borne diseases. Stuff like ‘momos’ chutney should be consumed within four hours. Food temperature is also not maintained and there was ignorance about food storage among vendors,” said Dr Kumar Pushkar, who is doing PhD on street food safety under his guide Dr Sonu Goyal and co-guide Dr Amarjeet Singh.

The study further found that about 40 to 50 per cent vendors do not wash vegetables.

It was also estimated in the study that about 1/5th of the city population consumes street food in any form. Food safety among vendors in periphery like Mani Majra and Dadu Majra here is comparatively bad.

“For every vendor, gloves, aprons and caps should be must as these come for a small cost and can help maintain hygiene,” said Dr Pushkar.

Side-effects on health

Eating unhealthy food may cause viral hepatitis, jaundice, typhoid, gastro intrinsic, food poisoning, cholera and water-borne diseases, said Dr Pushkar. “Along with smart city, we are also heading towards smart and healthy street food,” he said.

Provide basic facilities

Dr Pushkar said they had written to the Municipal Corporation to provide modular street food carts to vendors as the civic body heads ahead to implement the Street Vendors’ Act. They should also be provided with public health facilities such as water source point for hand wash and toilets.

Training session for vendors

The Municipal Corporation in collaboration with the Department of Community Medicine and School of Public Health, PGI, is going to hold a training session for street food vendors. It will be a holistic training mainly focusing on food hygiene. They will also be told about social security schemes available for them. A total of 3,000 vendors will be covered under it, said Dr Pushkar.

400 vendors interviewed

A total of 400 random street food vendors were interviewed in the research. It came to light that 80 per cent vendors have poor food hygiene, which means they have long nails and long hair. They were accepting currency notes with the same hands they were cooking without washing or using gloves. Sanitation was also not proper around their work station.

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