Crackdown on toxic poultry feed
As the government is cracking down on unscrupulous practices, mobile courts are carrying out inspections from super shops to food manufacturing factories to even shops making and selling poultry feed. In such a drive, a shocking fact has come out leather waste and toxic chemicals being mixed with poultry feed.
Obviously, this is a reason for worry because the poultry consuming the food are sold in markets for city dwellers to eat. The impact is on the overall health of the residents because the infected meat can cause a wide variety of health complications. In recent times we have seen a surge in liver diseases among people who lead a life of moderation and restraint. The cause of the ailment is eating meat which is already poisonous. During the recent drive, three factories were shut down and 6000 tonnes of toxic feed was seized. The mobile courts deserve praise but the crackdown cannot stop here. Many small shops buy poultry food from larger establishments and the whole chain needs to come under inspection.
One move would be to set up inspection centres at all city kitchen markets, so every item being offered undergoes some monitoring. This is especially important because a wide variety of dried fish sold in markets often carry insects and other harmful items. Once a small inspection team is operational with assistance from the ward commissioners office, all the markets will come under vigilance. Unfortunately, ward commissioners in major cities have very few functions, limited to handing out birth certificates and other minor administrative work.
The wards have to be made more active to form a grassroots level supervision, linking to the upper layers of municipal administration. Those who were caught selling harmful poultry feed need to be punished to set an example for other traders. In Bangladesh, once an issue loses shelf life, perpetrators use the loopholes of the law to get out without learning a lesson.
Since society forgets the incident, these people go back to the unethical trade, often using new methods. On one side, the administration needs to be firm and, on the other, a sense of ethical trade has to be inculcated among businesses. For too long, profit at all costs has been the mantra for many businesses. Its time to change that to, profit with a responsibility towards the community. Such a transformation is integral for a country, aspiring to achieve middle income status by 2021.
