Kolkata, Sept. 3 -- Amid ongoing raids on various restaurants, eateries and warehouses, State Health minister Sharadwat Mukhopadhyay on Thursday said that the license of 5 shops has been cancelled and around 13 restaurants have been asked to close their units for the next few days.

During a Press conference at Swasthya Bhawan, the minister stated that samples have been collected from 901 restaurants. More than 1,730 restaurants and eateries have been raided so far. Besides restaurants, raids are being carried out in packaged drinking water manufacturing units as well. Health minister accompanied by Health Secretary Narayan Swaroop Nigam, during the press conference stated that licences are being cancelled temporarily for some of the packaged drinking water units as well.

According to the health department, thirty mobile laboratories are roaming from the hills to the plains across Bengal to test food and drinking water. In those laboratories, tests are being conducted to find harmful chemicals in the drinking water. Two mobile laboratory units are working in Darjeeling and two in Kolkata.

The Health Minister said that surprise visits will be carried out. The main objective is to create awareness among the people. These inspections aim to ensure that the food or drinking water served to the people is pure.

The minister also pointed out that drives in restaurants and packaged water units will continue till September 7, after which a comprehensive dengue drive will be undertaken. The dengue drive will be carried out for one month. During the dengue drive, Asha workers and the staff members of the civic bodies will visit the households and carry out a survey if anybody is suffering from fever or complaining of dengue-related symptoms.

State health department has issued a circular that 'fever camps' should be opened in areas where the number of government health centres is low. Steps are being taken to conduct the tests in private labs free of cost. Health officials said fever identification and testing of symptomatic individuals would be conducted till Oct 15.

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.