Currently, the Monitoring Committee in Pokhara is relying on laboratories in Kathmandu or Bhairahawa to assure the quality of food products confiscated during market inspections.[break]
As a result, it has to wait for up to a month to get the results.
“This has dealt a severe blow to our credibility as we can´t take timely action against those found guilty of selling substandard or tainted products,” Sambhu Kumar Jha, chief of the Standard and Metrology Office, said. “On the other hand, people are consuming products whose quality is not known.”
Lack of a laboratory has also prevented the committee from checking the quality of food products like milk, ice-cream and juice, which have to be stored in temperature-controlled warehouses and sent to laboratories within certain time.
“These problems have limited our work to conducting checks of weighing machines,” Jha said. “That´s why people mock at us saying how can an office without a laboratory determine quality of food products confiscated during inspections.”
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