Stale sweets seized by BMC staff in Bhubaneswar. Telegraph picture

Bhubaneswar, July 5: The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation today conducted raids at a sweet shop in the Bapuji Nagar area and seized more than one quintal stale and unhygienic sweets as well as sweet-making material from there.

Samples of the sweets have been sent for laboratory tests.

Sources said a team of city health wing of the corporation, led by the food inspector, conducted raids at the shop around 11am following complaints that the shop was selling stale food.

“On reaching the spot, our team found huge amounts of sweets in the shop. The foul smell of the eatables indicated that the material was unhygienic. Moreover, the team also spotted some of the sweets that had fungal growth on them,” said Ashok Panda, in-charge of the city health office.

The team soon seized the sweets and brought these to the health office at Unit II, where these were disposed of using sanitary methods. “We sent some amounts of the seized eatables for laboratory examination and the rest were disposed of using bleaching powder,” said Panda.

Moreover, he said if it were found unhygienic after the test, the shopkeeper’s license would be cancelled. “Then we would take appropriate legal actions against him,” said the health officer.

According to the officers, the shop was opened on June 24 in Bapuji Nagar market. The raid was conducted today after one person had lodged a complaint against the shop selling stale food items. There were chances of people falling ill after consuming such degraded eatables.

However, the shop staff said the kiosk was recently inaugurated.

As many people were not aware of the existence of this shop, daily a huge amount of unsold sweets had to be disposed of. “Today, we were supposed to dump the stale material in the corporation waste-collecting vehicle. But, before we could dump it, the health officers came and took away the material,” said a staff.

The city health officers said they had been conducting such raids at various places in the city whenever they got any complaint regarding unhygienic foodstuff being sold out. “We even regularly conduct surprise raids on such eateries and small-time vendors and hawkers such as, gupchuwallas and dahibarawallas,” said Panda.

However, the local people expressed concern that such unhygienic sweets were being sold at a shop in the city during the monsoon.

“There are chances of common people falling ill by consuming such eatables. If we have to face such incidents in the heart of the city, what about the outskirts, where the corporation officers hardly act,” said Amit Das, a college student staying in the area. He said he had to depend upon such eateries on regular basis for his breakfast.