00:00It may be Mumbai's top five-star hotel, but it could be facing trouble now,
00:04especially the kind of raids that we are witnessing over food safety issues.
00:08A cockroach was found at a five-star hotel's restaurant.
00:12And this has, of course, led to a lot of anger, outrage, surprise even.
00:17This matter was flagged by Fortis Escort's Heart Institute chief,
00:22Dr. Ashok Seth, on social media.
00:25Dr. Seth shared this video and said a baby cockroach was on his table,
00:29so not anywhere near the kitchen or any other area where there could be storage,
00:34but right on his dinner table when he was at the restaurant.
00:37He further said that the cockroach killed his appetite
00:40and urged Maharashtra FBA chief, Tukaram Munde,
00:43like many have been doing on social media, to look into the matter.
00:47I'm talking about the prestigious five-star hotel, JW Married.
00:59All right, so that's the video on your screen, excerpt of it,
01:01and the baby cockroach that's clearly been documented by the man as well.
01:06What have we seen in the past few days?
01:08Food safety regulations have literally taken a step up.
01:12You're looking at the visuals of a previous meeting,
01:14an official meeting that had happened with diplomats of the Olympia Coffee House in Mumbai.
01:19It's an iconic coffee house, but while the same cafeteria was visited by Hollywood stars Matt Damon,
01:25Tom Holland, and was hyped up a lot about what happened,
01:30but it was the Maharashtra FBA that suspended the license of the same restaurant cafeteria
01:35because they saw massive violations of food safety.
01:38And now there were other places also that have been raided,
01:42face safety violations, norms, licenses were cancelled.
01:45Now, what about JW Married?
01:49Maharashtra FBA Chief Tukaram Mundi spoke about the action taken by his department
01:52during conversation with India Today's Consulting Editor, Rajdeep Sardasai.
01:58300% increase in FDA action in the last 100 days.
02:02You know, the point is you are enforcing the law.
02:06Now, are you doing it because you want to, in a way, send out a strong message,
02:11a fear of the law, you violate the law?
02:14Now, Mr. Mundi and his team will come after you.
02:17Until now, orders were issued, but were never enforced.
02:22You are enforcing them.
02:26Two issues.
02:28One is you are underestimating the efforts of FDA.
02:30It's not 5,000 inspections.
02:32It's more than 12,000 inspections in the last three months, 100 days.
02:35So, that's the number first one.
02:36Second is, out of those 5,000 food business operators who have been inspected,
02:41more than 5,000 have been given improvement notices.
02:44And the third part is that around 600, 600, one, two, or three, licenses have been suspended.
02:50So, that's about food.
02:52Almost, if you look at a drug sector also, more than 2,300 inspections or visits have been done during
02:58the same period.
02:59Around 800 licenses of different, whether it's a pharmacy or manufacturer, some product, blood centers, whether it's a private testing
03:08lab, have been suspended or canceled.
03:10And there has been almost 11 crores seizures in drug sector and around 67-odd crores in food sector.
03:19And almost, even if you look at the testing, we have collected more than 35,000 samples in last three
03:27months, of which 32,000 samples have been tested.
03:31So, we have worked on all the fronts, whether it's a food samples, food inspections, drug samples, drug inspections, laboratories,
03:40we have across.
03:40Now, why you are doing this?
03:42It's mandated as per the law.
03:44Now, the question is, why you are saying, you are enforcing to create the fear.
03:49I am not creating the fear.
03:50What we want to create is a compliance culture among the food business operator or the establishment, whether it's a
03:56drug or food.
03:58Compliance culture.
04:00The reason, Rajiv, here is just not a issue of food or drug.
04:03Please understand the context.
04:05This directly affects the health of the people.
04:08And that also has to be contextualized.
04:12Sheikh is joining me for the latest on that.
04:14Mustafa, what restaurant of GW Marriott do you hear?
04:18This was what happened.
04:19And because it was shared by someone else, that has given more evidence to what exactly happened.
04:24How do you think the FDA is going to go ahead with this?
04:26And do you think Mumbai restaurant owners right now would be deeply scared of such raids that are taking place?
04:34Well, three things.
04:35One is that there is an awareness among the customers since arrival of Tukaramundi, India, FDA.
04:41And wherever they eat, if they find any such violations, they report it.
04:48Second, there has been compliance, force pressures from the FDA, which the restaurants are finding it hard, but they are
04:58trying to comply.
04:59Because, see, these are the guidelines which are not very easy to comply.
05:02If you are calling for a pest control person, that pest control person also has to have a health certificate.
05:07That is second.
05:08Third, see, we only saw searches still now in high-end restaurants, high-end clubs.
05:15Still now, the five-star and seven-star hotels in Mumbai were not touched.
05:18But after Dr. Ashok's post, and sharing it with the video evidence, it seems that the FDA will have to
05:26come in action and inspect these hotels, which are supposed to maintain the highest standard of food quality and hygiene.
05:35And during the FDA search, if it's found that this is not being maintained, that of which the action will
05:41follow.
05:41So, given the way FDA has been functioning in the last three months, it seems to be very obvious that
05:48the FDA team will carry out a search in JW Marriott.
05:52And not only that, many other hotels in Mumbai to check whether the compliance has been met or not back
05:57to it.
05:57All right, Mustafa, keep tracking the latest on that.
05:59It's interesting, though, that something that should have been so basic, which is food hygiene and food safety, is now
06:06becoming such a celebrated issue.
06:08But perhaps it's not too late this time as well.
06:11Thank you very much for now, Mustafa.
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