THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Insight Quality Consultancy Services (IQCS), an agency approved by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), has started inspecting anganwadis in the district for grading them on the basis of healthy food practices being followed. The inspections are being held as part of the second phase of the ‘Eat Right Challenge’ of the food safety department.
Three anganwadis each at Kazhakkoottam and Nemom were inspected by the agency and in the coming days, more anganwadis will be inspected. As many as 50 anganwadis will be inspected and graded in the initial phase of the drive.
The agency plans to finish the first round of inspection and grading by October 28. Anganwadis that score 81% or over in the inspection are considered excellent and they will be given a five-star rating.
The score 61 to 80% is considered very good with four-star rating, score in between 41 to 60 is considered good with a three-star rating, the score 21 to 40 recommends improvement with a two-star rating and the score below 20 gives only one star recommending urgent improvement.
“There were no major issues found during the inspection, except a few erroneous practices. Directives have been issued to correct those mistakes and to produce certain reports. In the second round of inspections, we will check whether they have corrected the mistakes or not and they will be rated accordingly,” said IQCS operational manager Sanju Peter.
Most common mistakes noted by the agency during the inspection were failure to display licence and expiry dates of food items stored, said food safety officer Aghatha S.
The hygiene of the storeroom, boundary wall, leakage of roof, bathroom facilities, drinking water, etc were also examined during the audit.
