Veg, non-veg items found in same freezer in hotels

Patna: The officials of food safety wing of health department raided a couple of prestigious hotels in the heart of the city on Wednesday and found they were keeping vegetarian and non-vegetarian items in the same deep freezer. Altogether three teams conducted raids in different parts of the city.
One of the teams found that Hotel Pataliputra Exotica and Gargi Grand, situated on Exhibition Road, did not have separate freezers, said food safety wing official Mukesh Kashyap.This is violation of the Food Safety and Standard Authority of India rules, which say they must be preserved in separate freezers.
In Gargi Grand, the team also found the sewerage outlet passing through the hotel kitchen completely choked which affected the quality of food. The hotel was asked to get it repaired and report back to the authorities, failing which action would be taken against it. Samples of arhar dal, cashewnuts and ghee were also collected to check whether they were substandard or adulterated.
In Hotel Pataliputra Exotica, samples of black pepper, red pepper, arhar dal and tea bags were collected. The floor of the kitchen was found damaged and the hotel was instructed to get it repaired.
The officials also sealed a drink and shakes outlet, ‘Kevenders’, located in Nageshwar Colony, for not having the mandatory licence to operate. KFC’s outlet at Kankarbagh was raided but nothing adverse was found, T P Singh, a food safety official at the state headquarters of the department, said. However, a few samples were collected from there. Harilal’s outlet at Kankarbagh was sealed for not having a licence and nine food samples were collected.
A food safety wing team raided Haldiram’s outlet at Kankarbagh and found that it was operating in “unhygienic condition”. It was asked to rectify the anomalies.
A sweets shop, Cozy Sweets, on Dak Bungalow Road, was also raided and samples of five food items — anjeer, cashewnut, khowa, cashewnut sweets and boondi dana — were collected. The samples of cashewnut sweets were collected to see if they had silver foil, not aluminium foil or anything else.
Another team of officials raided Keshav Food Pvt Limited at Rukanpura and found it operating in unhygienic condition.
Three teams of food safety wing officials led by Mukesh Kashyap, Virendra Prasad and Narayan Ram conducted simultaneous raids in the city.