5 crore people suffering from food adulteration

M A Rahman: Nearly five crore consumers are suffering from food poisoning across the country as anti-adulteration drives for safety food remain stopped for political unrest which led scores of people suffering from many diseases.

The consumers do not buy the safety food now; they are deprived of buying safe food as the businessmen are focusing on profit only. They mix up different types of poisons and toxic chemicals in all kinds of food.

The safety food is consumers` constitutional rights. Earlier, the Jatiya Sangsad passed the "Formalin Control Bill, 2015" keeping a provision of life-term imprisonment as the maximum punishment for formalin abuse.

Following the ongoing political unrest, the drives of anti-adulteration has been stopped for long time.

 

Today (March 15) is marked as the anniversary of consumer`s day. The day is being celebrated from 1962, when former US president John Kennedy gave an address to Congress, in which he formally addressed the issue of consumer rights.

In his declaration, the former president also declared four basic consumer rights: safety, information, choice and the right to be heard while the consumers International has added four more: right to satisfaction of basic needs, right of redress, right to education and right to a healthy environment.

Marking the day, separate socio-cultural organisations in Dhaka have taken elaborate progrmmes to celebrate the day but no wide range of publicities and campaigns were seen aganist food-adulteration.

Abul Hossain Miah, director general of the Directorate of National Consumer Rights Protection, however, said in this regard, that their drives against food adulteration has been stopped for the lack of co-operation from the law enforcement agencies.

"Political situation also hampers our move against food adulteration," told the director general, to risingbd correspondent.

risingbd/ DHAKA/ Mar 15, 2015/ Mahfuz/ Augustin Sujan