Highway hotels lack basic hygiene

Highway hotels lack basic hygiene

KATHMANDU: Highway hotels and restaurants along Mugling-Narayangarh stretch on the Prithvi Highway lack basic hygiene and food quality, with only seven per cent hotels and restaurants found serving hygienic food.

The monitoring team of the Department of Food Technology and Quality Control found today that only two hotels and restaurants, out of 28 inspected in Ramnagar and Jugedi, maintained basic hygiene, cleanliness and food quality, said senior food inspector Pramod Koirala at the department. They were issued green stickers.
According to him, the department found 21 hotels and restaurants needed to clean up their act. Their kitchens, dining rooms, dish washing areas and toilets were found dirty. “They were issued yellow stickers; one of them got a red colour strap,” he said.

Hotels and restaurants should paste the stickers on their signboard, according to food monitoring guideline of the department.

“People should avoid eating at the hotels and restaurants bearing yellow and red stickers,” he added. The department has been grading hotels and restaurants in Mugling, Malekhu, Dharke and Naubise of Kathmandu-Muglin section since last year but the department has not yet achieved its target to maintain basic hygiene, cleanness and food quality in all the eateries along the highway.

More than 10,000 people travel every day in the road section.

Monitoring drive targeting highway hotels and restaurants began in 2011 after Chief Secretary Lilamani Paudel found out that poor quality food, and that too at high prices, was being served by the eateries along the highway. Then, Department of Commerce and Supply Management had found that over 80 per cent of the 240 hotels and restaurants were unhygienic and charged exorbitant prices. 

Source: The Himalayan Times