Artificial Ripening of Fruits: HC Directs State to Monitor Food Safety Officials

GUWAHATI Staff Reporter:

High Court on Artificial Fruit Ripening PIL: The Guwahati High Court has directed the Central Government to frame appropriate rules for regulating the open availability of calcium carbide in the market. The High Court also directed the Food Safety & Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) and the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas to coordinate while framing the rules.

High Court's Artificial Fruit Ripening Advisory

In this regard, the High Court further directed the Principal Secretary to the Government of Assam in the Health & Family Welfare Department to monitor the activities of the Senior Food Safety Officer/ Food Safety Officer towards their requirement of complying with the directions of this order.

The High Court gave these directions after hearing a PIL (Public Interest Litigation) filed by Bhaskar Baruah, an advocate in the Gauhati High Court. In the PIL, the petitioner raised concern about the fruits being sold in the market, which are ripened by following the artificial process of using a chemical which is calcium carbide. He also maintained that the fruits are being plucked from the trees before they ripen at a pre-matured stage.

By doing so, it facilitates the traders to transport the un-ripened fruits to its final market destination in a better condition. Moreover, there arises the possibility of the fruits getting ripened fast and getting rotten if the fruits do not reach the market in time or if these items could not be sold off at a proper time, pointed out the petitioner in the PIL.

He added in the PIL that thereafter, they are subjected to a process i.e., by keeping it above a collection of the chemical calcium carbide, which releases some gas; and the gas in turn, makes the fruits ripen quickly. When the fruits get ripened in the above process, they are sold in the market. Calcium carbide has its own detrimental effects on the fruits which is retained even after it is ripened. More ever when such fruits are consumed by the people, the ill-effects of calcium carbide adversely affects their health, maintained the petitioner in the PIL. Several scientific reports have also revealed that such fruits can lead to cancer.

Pointing out that this illegal fruit ripen practice has reached a menacing proportion, the petitioner has requested the Court to strictly enforce a ban on the illegal use of calcium carbide by unscrupulous persons for fruit ripening.

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