NEW DELHI: The Food Safety Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has issued ‘Eat Right Certificate’ to Jail No. 2 inside the Tihar Prison Complex in Delhi.
It is a recognition of food quality and hygiene which means the inmates will be getting quality food and the food items prepared in the jail for sale also meet the hygiene and quality standards fixed by the country’s food regulator.
The process for making Tihar Eat Right Campus started in 2019, and the prison was the first in the country to begin such an initiative.
The certification process involved rigorous work and multiple levels of improvement based on the Eat Right Campus benchmark of the FSSAI.
The process involved a pre- audit by a team of the Delhi Food Safety Department and a private training partner, Indraprastha Academy Foundation. The report submitted detailed observations and recommendations to improve the level of hygiene, sanitation, and protocols of food safety under FSSAI.
More than 950 inmates, who were involved in the factories and kitchens, were trained on the aspects of food safety, hygiene and sanitation.
“Standards operating procedures were made for different operations in the food premises including kitchens and factories. The Covid crisis slowed down the work, but it regained momentum when the situation improved,” said IAS officer and food safety commissioner, Neha Bansal.
The final audit was done by a third-party agency and requests were sent for recognition to FSSAI.
“Tihar has always been close to my heart as I have seen it closely during my work as DM of West district. I am Happy that we have also contributed towards the improvement process for which the Tihar administration is working rigorously,” Bansal said.
“It is heartening to understand that inmates are willing to undergo continuous training and be part of the improvement process," said a Jail official working on the project.
Sandeep Goyal, director-general of Delhi prisons, said: “We maintain high levels of hygiene and proper food quality in all our jails. It is a matter of great satisfaction and pride for us that our Central Jail no 2, Tihar has been certified by FSSAI. We would like to have all our jails to be recognised in a similar manner."
Bansal said work is currently going on for the certification of Mandoli and Rohini Jails. The certification process for Mandoli Jail has also started and soon the certification process of other jails would also be started when they also qualify the benchmarking process.
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