Mengal lauds role of media in food safety

Lahore : The Punjab Food Authority (PFA) in collaboration with Punjab University Institute of Communication Studies (ICS) arranged a seminar titled “Media Role in Food Safety and Health Awareness” on Thursday.

Director General Noor ul Amin Mengal has participated as a Chief guest in the event. ICS Head of the Department Nosheena Saleem, Assistant Prof Dr Lubna Zaheer, Assistant Prof Shabbir Sarwar, Food Safety Officers, journalists and large number of media students have participated.

Speaking on the occasion, DG Noor ul Amin Mengal has shed light on the role of PFA and support of media in order to eliminate the unhealthy food and adulteration from the Punjab. He has acknowledged the support of media for broadcasting and publishing their news against poor hygiene eateries and adulterators without any interest adding that media is playing vital role to create awareness about food issues in society.

According to different health reports around 50- 60 children is victim of nutritional shortage and deficiency of blood while major reason is behind unavailability of safe food.

He said that three things is very important for any country to run smoothly and keep stable, one thing is food security, second one is economic activity and third one is Food Safety adding that burden of diseases could be overcome if we control on food safety issues.

DG said that as per Chief Minister Punjab Mian Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif vision PFA has expanded this authority from Lahore districts to other districts of Punjab in a year which is a big achievement of PFA.

Around 16 laws were passed about food during 2017. Now we have 8 directorates who are doing services for this noble cause to bring the people on right track. He said that vigilance cell is a most important part of PFA who is keeping check and balance on adulterators and unhygienic food points.

He further said that children are future of our country for which PFA has taken special initiatives and banned the sale of cola drinks in educational institutions.

PFA is making law to control the misleading advertisements. We are bound companies to label in Urdu language on 10 percent area of their products that was selling in market by misleading to consumers. He told that such companies are spending huge amount of their total budget on advertisement just for showing their products as a glory in the eye of people.

PFA is discouraging all those products that are not healthy for consumer health from day first. PFA is also assured all those food companies to add ingredients which were lacking vitamins, iron and nutrients in their products during a production like in oil, salt, flour and ghee.

We are trying to improve food industry from top to bottom line under the guidance and supervision of Chief Minister Punjab Mian Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif.

He told that PFA has trained around 12-13 thousand food handlers in PFA food training schools. PFA is launching PFA Nutrition Services and radio in next few months for addressing the food issues and give awareness among society about unhealthy and unhealthy food, he added.

At the end, ICS Head of the Department Nosheena Saleem has appreciated the efforts of PFA and its teams. She said that PFA is doing work day and night to ensure the availability of healthy food in country. She has ensured to support of their department and students with PFA in future for this noble cause.