Over the past few days, the Food Safety Department has started receiving complaints relating to sale of plastic rice in the city.
On Friday, food safety officials lifted samples from the canteen in the MTC bus depot in Ayanavaram following a scare. After receiving the complaint by 2 p.m, the officials were at the spot in 30 minutes.
“We conducted preliminary examination by checking if the rice floats in water. In this case, it did not float. By heating the rice also, we can screen any plastic content. Any material with plastic content would melt,” said an official.
To be sure, the officials checked and lifted samples from nine bags of rice. Samples have been sent to the King Institute Guindy for analysis,” the official said.
After the scare, a team of officials belonging to the Food Safety Department checked 74 shops across the city, lifted samples and sent to laboratory for analysis.
“We are investigating. This is an essential commodity. We have not found any trader selling plastic rice in the city. There are 30,000 traders. At least 12,000 of them are retailers. FSOs will check a segment of retailers who are likely to sell such commodity,” said R.Kathiravan, Designated Officer, Food Safety Department, Chennai District.
Officials have sent five legal samples to Thanjavur laboratory and nine surveillance samples to King Institute, Guindy on Friday.
According to sources, a number of complaints were being received from residents owing to reportedly misleading information on social media about plastic rice in the past two weeks.
Senior officials of the Food Safety Department said that cases of plastic rice have not been reported in India so far.
