Recently, the most important meal of the day became a living nightmare for an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi student when he found a floating corpse of a rat in his mess food. The issue was broadcasted all over the country and serious concerns were raised regarding the safety and hygiene of meals served at college and hostel canteens. A few weeks after this incident the Food Safety and Standard Authority of India (FSSAI) has amped up its food safety army.

Safer Food Ahead

The apex food safety body has joined hands with fifteen national and international agencies to audit food safety and hygiene standards of canteens, cafeterias and mess of several IITs and IIMs, reported Hindustan Times. Some of these organizations selected by FSSAI for the audit are DNV, Bureau Veritas, Intertek, MS Certification, IRCLASS, SGS, BIS, TUV and Indocert. However, these agencies have, for now, been “provisionally empanelled” as the audit is still in its initial stage.

“FSSAI has ordered special food safety audits of the canteens, cafeterias, hostel mess etc of 10 select large central institutes of higher education like IIT (Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Guwahati), AIIMS (Delhi and Jodhpur), IIM (Ahmedabad and Kozhikode), IISc Bangalore and IISER Kolkata,” the FSSAI said in a statement.

Interestingly, this is the first time in the 6 years of its being that the FSSAI has taken such a substantial step to one up the safety of food served to students at some of India’s best colleges.

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