His line of work has involved conducting quality tests on milk samples and probing drinking water for microbes.
G. L. Upadhyaya, senior public analyst and Deputy Food Safety Commissioner at the Department of Food and Drugs, Government of Puducherry, who has been instrumental in launching interventions such as the milk quality survey across southern States a couple of years ago, has recently been awarded the Rajiv Gandhi Excellence Award for outstanding achievements.
The award, instituted by the International Business Council, was presented to him by Dr. B.N. Singh, former Governor of Tamil Nadu in Delhi recently.
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Mr. Upadhyaya also had a role in making Puducherry one of the few States/UTs to migrate the entire process of food and drugs licencing and registration renewal to an online mechanism.
“We’re one of the few governments in the country to have brought about transparency and eliminated red tape through this measure,” he said.
The lab also conducts periodic checks on noon meal samples in schools and bacteriological testing for coliform and E. coli in water samples drawn from overhead tanks of Primary Health Centres.
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The public health laboratory in Puducherry is one of the 72 centres identified for upgradation by the statutory body The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India.
“We expect the upgradation to be carried out in a phased manner,” Mr. Upadhyaya said.