T.N. Health Department recruits 127 Food Safety Officers through Medical Services Recruitment Board

State Health Department recruits 127 Food Safety Officers, emphasizing food safety, licensing, and technology for compliance and enforcement.

For the first-time, the State’s Health Department has recruited 127 Food Safety Officers (FSOs) through the Medical Services Recruitment Board (MRB), Health Minister Ma. Subramanian said on Thursday.

Shortly after handing over the appointment orders to the candidates, the Minister told reporters that there was a total of 391 posts of FSOs in the State. Of these, 235 were already filled, he said. They had the key responsibilities of conducting inspections of food establishments, granting registration certificates, lifting food samples, taking action on those who sell banned tobacco products, and creating food safety awareness, he said, adding that the newly recruited officers had been advised to concentrate on ensuring food safety in the State and to intensify efforts to curb the sale of banned tobacco products.

Health Secretary Surpriya Sahu said FSOs were at the frontline of food safety and urged them to have a balanced approach and food safety was applicable to everybody. She also asked them to use technology.

Ms. Sahu said nearly 7 lakh food safety licences had been issued, and there could be many establishments without licences. She stressed the importance of licensing all food establishments to ensure there was adequate legal backing to implement the Food Safety and Standards Act. “You should strictly implement the rules without any favour, without any bias, and without difficulty,” she said.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Ms. Sahu said half of the 127 newly recruited FSOs were women. “With this, we now have 362 FSOs. Our goal is to position a highly professional force to streamline the food safety standards compliance ecosystem in the State in a fair and transparent manner, with the use of technology, better training, enforcement, and capacity building of stakeholders,” she said.

Commissioner of Food Safety R. Lalvena, Chairman of MRB V. Kalaiarasi, and Director of Public Health and Preventive Medicine T.S. Selvavinayagam also spoke.