If the panipuri you ate last evening smelt a little awry, well, it was. Using the overpowering chaat masala and pudina flavours to guise the stink of rotten potatoes and fetid chickpeas to their advantage, vendors in Amdavaad are now facing flak from health department officials of the civic body.
Acting on a specific tip-off, Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) officials conducted raids on two “wholesalers” at Gajanand Market in Kubernagar. Their swoop down was met with large “smelly” sacks of potatoes, rejected by the agriculture produce market at Jamalpur.
“These, however, were being sold to panipuri vendors for half the rate. More than 285 kg of rotten potatoes were seized and destroyed. The entire godown was full of the stench. These were supplied specifically to panipuri vendors across the city. We have now learnt that the vendors would come every morning to sift through the rotten lot and pick out the still usable, but essentially rotten ones,” the official briefed.
The health team also raided a shack in Behrampura where rancid chickpeas and old masala packets were recovered. The inspection also led them to the water sourced from an open pipe in the Calico Mill compound in the area.
“We received a tip- off on Sunday about vendors preparing the panipuri water in unhygienic conditions. All the seized food items have been destroyed and one of the two units has been sealed,” briefed Dr Bhavin Joshi, Health Officer, AMC.
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