Staff Reporter:
Food Adviser Ali Imam Majumder yesterday said that the government would take every possible meas-urer to ensure smooth supply of safe food for the public.
“Direct and active participation of all related to food security is an urgent issue,” he said while presiding over the National Safe Food Management Advisory Council meeting at the conference room of the Cab-inet Division of Bangladesh Secretariat here.
Unsafe food is always a threat to the public health so that there is no alternative to create consciousness about safe food, he said, adding that such consciousness should begin at home.
“We have just taken measures for ensuring safe food for the public but we have to go a long way,” Ma-jumder said, adding that there is no scarcity of food in the country but there are some lapses in ensuring safe food.
‘Only the enforcement of laws and rules are not enough to ensure the safe food for the people, everyone from individual level to national level, would have to come forward and be conscious in this regard, the adviser added.
A ‘food safety referral library in Dhaka, two food testing centers in Chattogram and Khulna and a train-ing institute would be set up at a cost of Taka 2409.70 crore, the food adviser said, adding that Japan government will provide the money under Food Safety Testing Capacity Development Project for the next 10 years.
The meeting also decided to finalize the guidelines and rules regarding the safe food management au-thority and national food safety council taking the opinions from the stakeholders. It also decided to in-crease the manpower of safe food authority and expedite its activities across the country.
While addressing, Cabinet Secretary Dr Sheikh Abdur Rashid emphasized on ensuring availability of safe food and urged all concerned authorities to run their duties through coordination.
Public Administration Secretary Dr Md Mokhles-ur-Rahman said that highest importance should be giv-en to the issue of ensuring safe food for the public and necessary measures would be taken for enhancing manpower of the Safe Food Authority.
