Delhi Street Food Vendors May Soon Be Seen Wearing, Gloves, Caps, & Aprons

We are all used to spotting street food vendors sporting either their traditional garb or a casual attire. But get ready to see them don an additional set of clothing over their regular clothes. To keep at par with international standards, street food vendors in Delhi will now be following proper health and hygiene standards before serving you any food item. This includes being dressed in proper uniform complete with an apron, gloves, cap, and T-shirt.

This move comes in line with the on-going health and hygiene drive – Project Clean Street Food – being piloted by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) with Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. The program has taken under its wing about 23,000 street food vendors, who have been trained by the National Street Food Vendors Association of India (NASVI). On Saturday, around 6,000 of these vendors will be awarded the certificate along with a kit after completing their training.

Image: DNA India 

This kit comes with two aprons, one T-shirt, one cap, 50 disposable plastic gloves and a hand sanitizer to help the vendors bring their training in to action. The first phase will see vendors from populous shopping and food hubs Lajpat Nagar, Sarojini Nagar, Malviya Nagar and Sarai Kale Khan.

In addition to the hygiene-warrantying kits, food vendors will also be provided with a health chart, which will have 10 indicators. These indicators include washing hands before serving, using head cap, wearing gloves, using clean water, etc. Every food vendor will have this chart displayed near his/her cart.

It goes without saying that in order to make sure that the measures taken to make street food cleaner become fruitful, consumers too will have to be active participants in the drill. “The customers must always remind the food vendor to follow the 10 health indicators before serving the food. We will also keep a close watch on all the vendors to ensure that all the rules are being followed,” said Sangeeta Singh, Head, street food program, NASVI.

It is heartening to see that the movement to make street food healthier in Delhi is finally taking shape, albeit some hiccups. Singh claimed that the lack of Aadhaar cards resulted in vendors not being able to get certificates earlier.

“Many of them have not filled the information correctly due to which the certificates have not come yet. Some of them have not linked the Aadhaar card with the bank account. The department has now finally decided to give certificates to these 6,000 food vendors in the first phase.”

Though some sources claim that the remaining vendors will be certified in the next few months. According to the sources, once all the details of the vendors are placed properly, the certification process will speed up.

Source: DNA India