Meet IAS officer Anupama who is here to ensure adulterated food has no space to thrive in Kerala

In her 15 months of service, Anupama has carried out multiple raids and shut down several shops selling adulterated food.

By: Priyal Ray |
February 20, 2017 1:30 pm

Food adulteration has claimed lives since times immemorial and somehow still does not receive as much attention as it should. Not having any food to eat is an issue but things get way worse when the food one gets makes them sick or worse still kills them. This IAS officer and Food Safety Commissioner, has made it her aim to change this and is doing a brilliant job so far.

TV Anupama has taken up the food adulteration in Kerala very seriously and has been in service for 15 months now. She has already conducted several raids on shops that do illegal business and trade in adulterated food. She has had networks of such traders shut down. An investigation revealed that some contaminated items contain upto 300 percent pesticides and this is what became her push to work towards ending this issue.

Media reports say that since the beginning of Anupama’s tenure 6,000 samples pf adulterated food have been produced as part of the 750 cases that have been filed. Not just ensuring traders selling adulterated food get punished, Anupama has already encouraged people to grow their own food. Under this move, the state government had delivered free seeds, saplings and helped folks growing their own food with irrigation and bi-gas facilities. Talk about ensuring people under one’s governance eat healthy.

All thanks to her campaign and encouragement, Kerala now grows most of their food independently, unlike previously when they got in 70 percent of their vegetables from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Speaking to a media house, Anupama said she is not very fond of media attention and goes on to tell us how she rarely uses her Facebook account and has no verified page or Twitter account. She admits eventually opening up because she has to put all records up on the official website from where it becomes public.

Food adulteration has claimed too many lives already and comes from nothing but some traders’ greed to fulfill which they put human lives at stake. Kudos to Anupama for her campaign and here’s hoping more officers follow in the lady bureaucrat’s footsteps.