Karnataka Health Minister asks people not to be 'fooled' by attractive, colourful dishes

Bengaluru: Karnataka Health Minister Dinesh Gundu Rao on Monday appealed to people not to be "fooled" by attractive and colourful dishes, but to insist on safe and quality food.

He cited the recent testing of six samples belonging to the Empire Group of Restaurants, which turned out to be unsafe due to the use of banned synthetic colouring.

"Despite repeated warnings, the restaurant group continued to use the unsafe colouring agent. Only after legal notices were sent did the colour go from red to yellow," the health minister told reporters during his weekly media briefing.

There was no response from the Empire Group of Restaurants.

According to the minister, better quality food and drugs can become the norm only if people insist on quality goods.

"Yes, the government needs to do its part and tackle this legally, but people too should cultivate quality conscious as culture," he said.

The minister also said the health department held a video conference on July 30 with cooking oil manufacturers to insist that the trans-fat level should not exceed 2 per cent.

"We told them that if it exceeds 2 per cent, strong action will be taken against them," he added.

Rao said the oil manufacturers were also urged to sell used cooking oil (UCO) to manufacturers like Pyrene Industries, which converts UCO into biodiesel.

According to 2024-25 data, 28,73,124 litres of UCO were used to manufacture biodiesel and soap, he said.

"We want this figure to increase substantially so that UCO does not go back into the market for cooking purposes," he added.

Rao said the Karnataka government has merged the enforcement division of Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani (ASU) medicines under the AYUSH Department, as well as the existing AYUSH drug testing laboratory in Bengaluru, with Drug Control Division of the Food Safety and Drug Administration Department for better functioning of the Health Department.

According to him, the government's proposed app to control drug safety is expected to be functional by the end of this month.

"With this app, we can immediately withdraw defective drugs, as we can track at distributor level. So, we can put an immediate stop to further sale of that drug," said the minister.

He said, once the app is in force, they will expand its scope. "Next will be to take it to the pharmacy level. We want to onboard every pharmacy on the app," he added.

At present, the recall procedure takes two days, he said, citing the recent recall of nearly 40 lakh drugs in two days.

"This too, we had made a breakthrough with the help of a software. Earlier, it used to take nearly 30 days to recall batches of failed drugs from the market," he added.

The minister also said work is progressing at expected pace in bringing the private ambulances and mobile medical units under the ambit of Karnataka Private Medical Establishments (KPME) Act. "We will be coming out with an amendment soon," he added.