KMC monitors market: Inedible food items found in govt-run shops

Kathmandu / Sept 27: Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) has started market monitoring aimed at the Dashain festival. On Tuesday, a KMC team comprising Sunita Dangol, deputy mayor of KMC, monitored the Dashain-targeted market.

Deputy Mayor Dangol’s team monitored the vegetable markets, food stores and meat shops and the stores of Food Management and Trade Company Limited located in Tukucha. The team went to the internal shops in the metropolis and checked the bill of goods, the production date of registered/unregistered goods.

While talking to media persons during the market monitoring, Deputy Mayor Dangol said that it was found that a lot of inedible items were being sold in the market. She said that some of them did not know about the registration and they were made aware.

She said that it was found that not only the sellers but also the buyers could not identify the inedible material. Deputy Mayor Dangol promised to continue the monitoring process even after Dashain.

Deputy Mayor Dongol said, “It is seen that there is a lot of irregularity during Dashain, the prices are high in the market and they keep storing things stating that they are sold out. We have monitored to raise awareness rather than take action.

Some people don’t even know what to register. We will take legal action if they are negligent now.”

In the course of monitoring, food products whose manufacturing date had expired were found in the food department. On behalf of Food Management and Trading Company Limited, Bagmati Regional Chief Gyanu Thapa claimed that expired food items were not sold by the department.

She said that some of the products are coming from the manufacturing companies and the department does not sell non-edible products to the consumers. She promised to correct the shortcomings of the department in the coming days.

She said, “We have not sold any expired food to consumers. We will improve according to the suggestions given by KMC. We will bring 1,800 goats, 500 mountain goats. Some of them have already arrived while others are coming.”

However, Madhav Timalsina, president of Consumer Rights Research Forum, accused the state of not being responsible while providing food items to consumers.

He expressed his anger that even in today’s monitoring conducted by the metropolis, inedible materials were found in government institutions.