Ensuring safe food a far cry

A nationwide outcry against widespread food adulteration had prompted the government to replace the archaic Pure Food Ordinance of 1959 with a stringent Safe Food Act in 2013. The promises were high-sounding -- there would be a single entity instead of 15 agencies in charge of curbing food adulteration and chemical contamination; there would be dedicated courts dealing with food offenders; and plaintiffs would get 25pc of the proceeds gained from penalties to be slapped on adulterators. Three years on, consumers in Bangladesh have very little to cheer about. It took the government over 15 months to form the Bangladesh Food Safety Authority (BFSA) as mandated by the new law. The idea was that the BFSA would be consumers' one-stop answer to concerns over safe food. Twenty months have passed since the inception of the BFSA, but the government has not yet sanctioned its required manpower.