To ensure food quality and inspire public confidence for a healthy Ladakh the Principal Secretary Dr. Pawan Kotwal who also is the Commissioner Food Safety, flagged off the first ever ‘Food Safety on Wheels’ (FSW) funded by FSSAI at a cost of Rs 45 lakhs at the Civil Secretariat, Leh today.
Speaking on the occasion, Dr. Kotwal emphasized that awareness and availability of safe food are crucial components of the food safety ecosystem, and through this mobile unit, the department can interact with and provide services to consumers at various locations or points of contact to increase their overall impact.
The FSW is a mobile unit that includes an inbuilt laboratory and has three main components: awareness, testing, and training. It will be deployed in the field from today onwards.
The Assistant Commissioner, Food Safety Leh, Tamchos Gurmet, said that the FSW vehicle will be taken to every village and block to conduct milk product testing, sugar levels of juices and jams, and water testing. Additionally, domestic households will be able to test their water, milk, etc., and the public can call a toll-free number for grievances, he added.