Pune district has recorded the highest number of food safety complaints in Maharashtra on the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) new online grievance portal, with most of them relating to unhygienic food, FDA Commissioner Tukaram Mundhe said on Monday.
Mundhe shared the data while speaking to reporters at a food safety conference organised by the Maratha Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture (MCCIA) in Pune.
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The commissioner said the FDA had recently launched a new portal, complaints.mahafda.in, to let citizens directly flag food adulteration or unhygienic practices.
Within just 24 hours of its launch, the website received around 10 lakh visits and was flooded with thousands of complaints.
Under the new digital system, once a complaint is registered on the portal, the FDA's joint commissioner for the concerned region must take cognisance of it within 24 hours, after which it is assigned to an officer for action.
If that officer fails to take the required legal action within the stipulated timeframe, the complaint is automatically escalated to a senior official in the department — a mechanism Mundhe said was designed to build transparency and accountability into the system.
Mundhe, known for his strict administrative style, also said the FDA is considering the use of blockchain technology to maintain tamper-proof records of food businesses and hotels that have previously faced regulatory action, to ensure repeat offenders cannot exploit loopholes in the system.
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He urged all hotels, restaurants and food businesses across the state to comply with the Food Safety Management System and strictly follow all 22 key rules laid down by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI).
The FDA's renewed push comes amid growing public concern over food safety standards in Maharashtra, with the new portal expected to significantly widen the regulator's ability to track and act on citizen complaints in real time, particularly in urban centres like Pune where footfall in the food and hospitality sector remains high.
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