Team Goemkarponn
Mapusa: The Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) carried out a surveillance drive at Mapusa Yard and the beach belt areas to assess the safety and quality of bananas and cashew nuts being sold to consumers and tourists.
During inspections at Mapusa Yard, the FDA team verified the ripening methods used by fruit vendors and collected surveillance samples for analysis. The checks were conducted as a follow-up to a coordination meeting held earlier with Mapusa Yard officials and fruit vendors, during which vendors had assured authorities that they would refrain from using unapproved ripening methods.
Officials stated that no suspicious activities were observed during the checks at the yard.
The team also inspected vendors operating outside St Xavier’s College in Mapusa, where a few vendors were penalised under Section 69 for failing to comply with earlier directives issued by the department.
Further inspections were conducted at Calangute, where 12 cashew shops were checked. With assistance from Calangute Traffic PI Brendan, the FDA team approached tourists and requested them to purchase cashew nuts from the shops as decoy customers to verify the quality of products sold.
During the verification, officials found that low-grade oily cashew nuts were not being sold, and the cashew nuts offered to tourists were generally of acceptable quality. However, some vendors were found violating labelling norms. One shop, Patel Cashew, was found selling low-grade pepper-coated cashew nuts.
As a result, four out of the 12 vendors were penalised with fines ranging from ₹5,000 to ₹25,000. The FDA team also confiscated 50 kg of low-quality pepper-coated cashew nuts and 10 kg of unlabelled “stone chocolate.”
Additionally, a shawarma vendor was fined ₹5,000 for failing to comply with earlier directives issued by the department.
The inspection team included Richard Noronha, Designated Officer (North Goa), and Food Safety Officers Amit Mandrekar, Lenin De Sa, and Darlan Diukar, along with staff member Sandeep Shelke, working under the guidance of FDA Director Shweta Dessai.
