Dinesh Gundu Rao, the health minister of Karnataka, told people on Monday to be more careful about the food they eat. He told them not to be “fooled by attractive and colorful dishes” and to demand safe, high-quality food. He mentioned that six food samples from the Empire Group of Restaurants were deemed to be dangerous because they used a synthetic colorant that is not allowed.
The government is doing something about food and drug safety.
The minister talked about a number of steps the state government is taking to make food and medicine safety better:
The minister stated that despite numerous warnings, the Empire Group of Restaurants continued to use the harmful coloring agent. They only stopped after they got legal letters. He asked people to assist bring about change by creating a “quality conscious” culture.
Trans-Fat Levels: On July 30, the Health Department held a video conference with cooking oil companies to warn them that they would face serious consequences if the trans-fat content in their goods went above 2%.
Used Cooking Oil (UCO): Rao asked oil firms to sell UCO to companies like Pyrene Industries, which turn it into biodiesel. The goal is to greatly raise the present amount of UCO utilized for making biodiesel and soap, which is 28,73,124 liters, in 2024-25. This will keep it from getting back into the food market.
Drug Safety App: The government wants to make an app that will make drugs safer, and it should be ready to use by the end of this month. This app will make it possible to quickly pull defective pharmaceuticals off the market by keeping track of them at the distributor level. This will cut the time it takes to recall them from about 30 days to a few hours. The app will eventually be available at all pharmacies.
Departmental Mergers: The Drug Control Division of the Food Safety and Drug Administration Department has merged with the enforcement division of Ayurveda, Siddha, and Unani (ASU) medicines and the existing AYUSH drug testing laboratory in Bengaluru to make things run more smoothly.
Regulation of ambulances: The Karnataka Private Medical Establishments (KPME) Act is being worked on to include private ambulances and mobile medical units. An amendment is likely to come soon to make this official.