Raids conducted to check quality of food

KARACHI: Pakistan Standards Quality Control Authority (PSQCA) officers raided the Sunday Bachat Bazaar, Defence Housing Authority along with their mobile testing laboratory to check sub-standard food products.

The laboratory is equipped with necessary instruments to test different products on the site, such as edible oil, bottled drinking water and beverages.

After the team arrived, PSQCA media adviser Rehmatullah Memon asked people to avail the testing facilities of their food items free of cost. They collected samples from different stalls, especially of ghee, oil, water and spices and conducted tests in the mobile lab and announced the results.

PSQCA quality control director Masood Ahmad Khan and Standards Development Centre assistant director Jawaid Hussain Siddiqui informed the media and the people present about the testing report in which a product, Dawat, of M/s Wali Oil Mills Ltd, Lahore, failed to meet the quality standards due to the absence of some vitamin contents and increased peroxide value.

The PSQCA raid team immediately confiscated all of the Dawat stock from the stalls of the Sunday Bazaar.

DHA security guards tried to stop the PSQCA raiding team and the media covering the testing and confiscation. Memon said that PSQCA is fully authorised by the PSQCA Act VI of 1996, as it can conduct a raid at any place, market or bazaar without any prior notice. The team announced that PSQCA is going to expand its activities to control the manufacture of sub-standard products, ensuring good health and safety.

Published in the Express Tribune, June 14th, 2010.