Haryana health minister calls for intensified food safety surveillance during festive season

Haryana's Health Minister Arti Singh Rao has urged authorities to ramp up food safety surveillance during the upcoming festive season. Rao instructed the Food and Drug Administration to collect 100-150 surveillance samples of food items in each district. She urged citizens to purchase food from trusted sources and report any suspected food issues to authorities.

Dr Manoj Kumar, Commissioner of FDA, confirmed the minister's directive to strengthen the food safety campaign across the state. The primary goal is to ensure access to safe, pure, high-quality, and unadulterated food products, especially for sweets, milk, and dairy items consumed during Diwali and Chhath Puja. Under this initiative, district-level special food surveillance teams will be formed, inspecting major markets, sweet shops, dairies, and other food establishments to identify substandard, adulterated, and unsafe food products.

These teams aim to collect 100-150 additional surveillance samples per district, separate from routine samples. Special focus will be placed on commonly consumed products during the campaign. Data from analyzed samples will be regularly uploaded on the FDA's state portal for transparency and accountability. Between April and September 2026, FDA collected 2,428 food samples, finding 232 enforcement and 149 surveillance samples non-compliant with safety standards.