Times of India: Chennai: Thursday, August 10, 2017.
A food safety
officer in Tiruvallur has been found responsible for his office sending a
sample of dal instead of rice for testing to the government laboratory
concerned. Besides, S Muthukumar did not report to work for a single day for
seven months, but drew full salary for the period.
The incident
came to light while an RTI activist was inspecting records in the office in
connection with a food safety complaint he filed in July 2016.
M Kasimayan,
a motor mechanic from Thiruvottiyur, lodged a complaint with the Tamil Nadu
Food Safety and Drug Control Administration department about poor quality rice
being sold at a grocery in the neighbourhood.
The complaint
was forwarded to the designated food safety officer in Tiruvallur district, but
appropriate action was taken. Grieved, Kasimayan filed a Right to Information
(RTI) petition with the food safety department a few months later.
He received a
five kg of irrelevant documents after he went for a second appeal with the
state information commission. He had sought details only about follow-ups to
his complaint filed in July 2016, but the department sent details of all
complaints it received since July 2016
Kasimayan
then sought permission under section 2 (j) of the RTI Act 2005 to scrutinise
records pertaining to the case. Scrutinising the records he got this month, he
found the officers concerned sent tur dal instead of rice for testing to the
government food analysis laboratory, Salem.
The dal
sample was also declared 'misbranded' by the lab, the results for which were
not revealed to Kasimayan. Misbranding of food attracts up to Rs 3 lakh in fine
under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006.
A senior
state food safety wing official said they collected all possible samples,
including rice, from the Thiruvottiyur grocery and reports on other samples
were awaited.
Further, the
attendance register of the said office showed Muthukumar, the designated
officer, hadn't reported to work in seven months.
"It is
not mandatory for the designated officer, head of the department, to sign the
register everyday as might be busy conducting field inspections. However,
efforts would be made to cross-check the register," the official said.
Referring to
government order 99 which says grievance petitions should be redressed within a
month, Kasimayan said that contrarily it had taken almost a year for the
department to check whether the official concerned was reporting to his office
regularly or not.