Expired bakery products being sold in health minister Dr Balbir Singh’s home town
Kanwar Inder Singh/ royalpatiala.in News/ August 20,2024
Now a day’s Patiala, a home town of health minister Dr Balbir Singh is becoming famous not for the upgradation of health services but for rampant selling of expiry date products, food items having cockroaches etc in popular food joints, renowned bakery shops.
Earlier city’s renowned sweet shops, bakery like Malhotra Sweets, India Bakery, Narain Chakki, Agya Singh’s dhabba , Gopal Sweets etc remained in news for all wrong reasons. In the latest case, renowned and one of the oldest bakery of the Royal City, Patiala’s “Kwality Bakery” at Anardana Chowk is in the news for selling expiry date biscuits to the customer on the eve of Rakhri.
The bakery is found selling biscuits with packing date of November 2023 on Raksha Bandhan, in August 18,2024.
“We are a regular customer of Kwality Bakery since long. We used to consume their bakery products like biscuits, rusk, cakes , patties etc. on regular basis. We even gifted their biscuits to our relatives, friends living outside Patiala. On August 18,2024, Sunday evening I along with my husband went to Kwality Bakery to purchase biscuits for my mother who lives outside Patiala. I asked the salesman at a counter of Kwality bakery to give me a packing of Pista Kaju and Khajoor biscuits. He handed over me a slip of the payment of two boxes. Then I purchased few other items and made the payment of all the products through online mode. After that the cashier handed me that slip with paid stamp. I submitted that slip to the salesman, he gave me the bag having one packing of Pista Kaju and Khajoor biscuits and we left the shop” said Gurpreet Kaur, a resident of Patiala.
She further added “ on the next day, August 19,2024, on the occasion of Rakhri, I visited my parents home and handed over the bakery products purchased from Kwality Bakery to them. Their, my nephew pointed out that the Pista Kaju biscuits are made in November 2023 and are already expired. I felt so ashamed that I can’t explain in words. Even it spoiled our festival’s zeal” added Gurpreet Kaur.
Jasguneet a resident said “it’s an eye opener to all of us that the shopkeepers are selling their discarded products during festival time. Even the health authorities always skip the renowned shopkeepers and check only petty shopkeepers.”
When contacted Jasdeep Singh, owner of the Kwality Bakery, Patiala “he said, it’s by mistake. We are not selling expiry date products. The person might have pasted a wrong sticker (packed on 18,November 2023 and best before 2 months) on the product. You can send the person who had purchased the biscuit having wrong sticker, we will replace the biscuit or refund the money. ” When questioned how the old stickers are made available to employee of the bakery for packaging and not discarded the old stickers. He again said ” we will refund the money or replace the biscuits.”
Expired bakery products being sold in health minister Dr Balbir Singh’s home town, on this the civil surgeon, Patiala Dr Jatinder Kansal, said” I’ll ask my food safety officers, district health officer to check the bakery. It’s intolerable that anyone is playing with the health of any person. Now the festival season is coming we will speed up our checking. We will not allow to spoil anyone’s health.
When contacted the newly appointed district health officer (DHO) Dr Gurpreet kaur, she said ” as you know i had just joined my new place of posting. But i’ll start food sampling at the earliest ans assure that no leniency will be taken against defaulters.”
