Minister gives solution to avoid food adulteration
Commerce Minister Faruk Khan on Thursday advised consumers to limit consumption to curb food adulteration. “Please eat less than your requirement. This technique will ease all problems. If you eat minimum, it will reduce many problems. If you control your eagerness of eating, the businessmen will get a proper lesson,” Faruk Khan advised.
The minister was speaking at a seminar titled ‘Ways to reduce food adulteration’ at the National Press Club organized by Voluntary Consumers Training and Awareness Society (Vocta).
He said the government will enact an anti -adulteration law which will award 25 per cent of fine money to the person providing information on adulteration.
Earlier the Commerce Ministry on Thursday asked the mill owners to sell sugar and edible oil only to distributors in a bid to keep prices stable during Ramzan.
Faruk Khan gave the directive at a meeting with the importers and refiners, commerce secretary Golam Hossain told reporters.
The minister stressed that the fixed price of Tk 60 per kilogram of sugar at mill gates and Tk 65 at the retail market must be maintained, Hossain said.
However, sugar and oil became dearer as some of the refiners stopped their mills despite repeated requests by the government.
Only Igloo and Deshbandhu, among eight millers, are continuing production of sugar.
The commerce ministry earlier last week issued a letter to the refiners asking them to explain why they had stopped their refineries.
The mill owners during the meeting explained that they failed to buy sugar at an affordable price from the international market.
Market sources said the two mills are supplying 2,000 tons of sugar a day against an average demand of five thousand tons.
-With The Independent input
