Uttarakhand’s health department has issued a notice to food aggregator apps Swiggy and Zomato for serving non-vegetarian food in certain restricted areas in Haridwar.
Reportedly, Haridwar municipal corporation prohibit the sale of non-vegetarian food items and meat products within city limits, including Jawalapur, Har-ki-Pauri, Kankhal, Kharkhari, Motichur and Haripur areas. However, both Swiggy and Zomato violated the norms by delivering non-vegetarian food in the city.
According to a TOI report, Haridwar’s deputy food safety officer RS Pal said that the incident came to light after local residents complained about the same to the city magistrate.
Pal said, “Local residents had complained to city magistrate Jagdish Lal recently. Following which, we were asked to investigate the matter. The two companies failed to show the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India
(FSSAI) licence to the teams that had gone to inspect their offices. The firms also had not obtained no-objection certificates from the municipal corporation to deliver non-veg products.”
Stating that both the Swiggy and Zomato’s act has hurt the sentiments of the locals, Pal added that the food aggregators have been given seven days to present their case.
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Both Zomato and Swiggy have issued statements regarding the issue. The two firms apologised for hurting the religious sentiments and said that the incident would not happen again.
The Zomato statement read, “We have been working with FSSAI over the past year to ensure that there are no complaints. We have already applied for a licence for our operations in Haridwar. We respect the religious sentiments of the holy city and will oblige with the directives set by the authorities.”
Meanwhile, a Swiggy spokesperson said, “We deeply regret the lapse in delivering non-veg food in the restricted area. We have addressed the issue and would like to reiterate that as of March 16, Swiggy is delivering only vegetarian food in Haridwar.”
