'Har Ghar Tiranga' inspires 'Har Thali Tiranga': Mumbai aims to make street food safer and healthier

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], August 16 : Bhushan Varsha Ashok Gagrani, Commissioner of the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM), recently chaired a meeting with officials from the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), officials said on Friday.
According to officials, the meeting, led by FSSAI CEO G Kamala Vardhana Rao, focused on strategies to enhance the safety of street food in Mumbai.
The discussion centered on elevating Mumbai's street food to meet global safety and hygiene standards by developing Healthy and Hygienic Food Streets (HHFS) in the city.
Representatives from Thane, Nagpur, Nasik, and Pune Municipal Corporations, who are also involved in HHFS initiatives, attended the meeting.
In the meeting, the issue of ensuring safe, healthy and sustainable food was discussed for the food being sold by Street Food vendors. Just as the theme of Har Ghar Tiranga, the orange colour shall ensure safety, white shall ensure health and green shall ensure sustainable food.
MCGM Commissioner Bhushan Varsha Ashok Gagrani said that Mumbai is renowned for its vibrant and diverse street food culture, which attracts both locals and tourists. He said that stringent training of street food vendors would ensure wide-scale availability of safe street food in the city, making it even more popular.
FSSAI CEO G Kamala Vardhana Rao mentioned that FSSAI's Food Safety Training and Certification (FoSTaC) program provides food handlers with up-to-date knowledge on food safety and hygiene. He also noted that FSSAI is significantly scaling up training programmes across the country, which would also see a large increase in the number of trained street food vendors in Mumbai.
The meeting, held on August 13, also included KH Govindraj, Principal Secretary of the Urban Development Department (UDD), and Pritee Chaudhary, Regional Director of FSSAI West Region. Strategies for large-scale training and awareness programs in Mumbai were discussed.
Replying to a query regarding the registration of street food vendors by the MCGM Commissioner, the FSSAI CEO G Kamala Vardhana Rao said that registration of food handlers is carried out as part of the FoSTaC programme. Rao also said that training street food vendors is an integral part of the development of Healthy and Hygienic Food Streets.
Welcoming an assurance by FSSAI CEO Rao to deploy additional mobile food testing vans, known as 'Food Safety on Wheels' (FSWs) in Mumbai, MCGM Commissioner Gagrani said that this initiative will further empower consumers as they will have easy access to food items tested.
FSSAI CEO Rao said results for most of the tests carried out in the FSWs are provided to consumers on the spot and within a short duration. He said that FSWs would be able to reach all markets in Mumbai in a similar way as FSWs are currently being deployed in many markets across Delhi ahead of the upcoming festive season.