Bengaluru: Rubbishing an allegation by Member of the opposition in BBMP and Corporator Umesh Shetty from the Bharatiya Janata Party that some of the Indira Canteens in the city were serving poisonous food, Mayor Gangambike has termed it a gimmick, here on Wednesday, March 20.
In a press conference on the controversy, she said that based on the complaint received she had spoken to the BBMP Commissioner N Manjunath and the health department officers to collect the samples from around 16 Indira Canteens.
She clarified that the Indira Canteens were opened to serve food to the poor and the needy.
“The canteen provides quality food at affordable rates. Because the canteen is turning out to be a success, Shetty has politicised the matter keeping in mind the coming Lok Sabha elections”, she added.
Gangambike has said that the lab tests done at the Ramaiah Advanced Testing Laboratory at Umesh’s behest could not be accepted as it doesn’t come under the authorised testing centres list of Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI).
She termed the Shetty’s test results unauthentic.
She has requested the people not to panic about the food quality served in Indira Canteens as the BBMP food analysts had already tested canteens located in Mahadevpura and certified the food there to be edible.
Meanwhile, she has warned of stringent action against Umesh Shetty if his allegation is proven false.
Chairperson, Standing Committee for Audit, Nethra Narayan, BBMP ruling party leader Abdul Wajid and others were present.
On Tuesday, March 19, BJP Corporator Umesh Shetty of Govindarajanagar had collected samples of food from the kitchen of a Indira Canteen unit and given it for testing in two labs in the city. Shetty had claimed that reports pointed at ‘poisonous’ content in food.
