Beware, your ice is mostly contaminated
The civic body has seized and destroyed 120 tonnes of contaminated ice from across Mumbai in the last one week. Given the link between outbreak of diseases and contaminated water and food, the BMC destroyed ice that was unhygienically stored at restaurants, and by street food vendors or hawkers. Maximum seizures were made in the island city (see graphic).
BMC has decided to carry out joint raids with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on ice factories across the city. These raids follow results of tests on ice samples last month, which revealed that 75% had E-coli, which causes gastroenteritis and diarrhea.
The FDA, in a separate drive, also picked up samples from across the city and sent them for analysis.
At the monthly meeting, civic chief Ajoy Mehta instructed ward officials to take cognizance of gastroenteritis cases and directed health department officials to take action against street food and cold drink vendors.
“Although gastroenteritis cases have not gone up drastically this year, it has been decided to take a proactive stand to maintain hygiene,” said a public health department official. Among wards where the largest quantum of ice was destroyed was E ward (which includes Byculla and Mandanpura) in south Mumbai, where 10.8 tonnes was destroyed, and G-North (Dadar and Shivaji Park), where 8.7 tonnes was destroyed.Apart from this, in M-East ward (Mankhurd and Deonar) 18.5 tonnes was destroyed, which was the highest amount compared to any ward. In R-South ward (Kandivli) in the western suburbs, health department officials destroyed 11tonnes of ice.
“This is preventive action, it will continue in the coming days,“ said a civic official.
