Kareem’s has been allowed to reopen
“We inspected 10 restaurants and found that they were now fit to reopen. KMC issued suspension notices to 40 establishments on Sept 8, following a week-long food safety drive. Suspension notices were issued to 20 other eateries later. Nizam’s renovation will be completed by Tuesday night, said Samar Nag, the current owner of the 98-year-old restaurant. Over 2,700 samples were collected during the food safety drive.
We are also actively considering giving nod for reopening to a dozen restaurants any day,” said the official. Sources said the eateries applied to KMC after making the necessary changes. An official said almost all the eateries they had inspected over the last two days had brought in measures to address concerns flagged by food inspectors. “Our inspectors have found noticeable improvement in the hygiene of the restaurants,” said a KMC official. These will be prepared in limited volume initially and then scaled up if we get positive customer feedback,” said Nag. He said the employees were concerned with the shutdown of the eatery, especially with the festive season kicking in. Employees were worried about salary and bonus,” said Nag.
They were shut down for violations of food safety norms. Among those that were shut were Nizam’s, Kareem’s on Mirza Ghalib Street, and an Arsalan outlet in Nagerbazar. The suspension notices meant the establishments were barred from serving food to customers and had two weeks to make corrections, failing which, they would have faced stricter punishment. Storing food without tags mentioning when it was first stored, and the use-by date, using ingredients not permitted by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), and using colour hazardous to health were among some of the common irregularities found at the restaurants. “The KMC team found colour in our biryani beyond the permissible limit. We have now decided to use only saffron in the coloured biryani. We will also have a white biriyani. These are two separate biryani dishes that we are going to introduce. This is the time of year when business picks up. “It was a traumatic experience for us.
Nizam’s will open on Wednesday While Kareem’s opened on Tuesday. Sources said the laboratory results of samples that were collected were yet to arrive on Tuesday.