Beverages Industries Association demands removal of sample testing charges
Staff Reporter
PESHAWAR: Beverages Industries Association (BIA) has expressed serious concern over the new policy of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Food Safety and Halal Food Authority under which samples are being collected from industries on a quarterly basis, while all the expenses of these tests have also been put on the industries.
In a press release issued from the BIA office, the association’s President Faisal Shah Safi and General Secretary Khurshid Alam said that the move was putting an unnecessary financial burden on the beverage industry, which was already suffering from rising production costs and difficult conditions.
They explained that in the past, the Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority (PSQCA) was their regulatory body and under that system, quarterly water quality tests were conducted regularly but the charges were not collected from the industries and at that time only had to pay, when a factory conducted a test on its own, which is currently Rs 4,700 per test.
“Unfortunately, the KP Halal Food Authority has now put all the expenses of the quarterly tests on the industries, making the process not only unfair but also against the authoritative regulatory procedures of the past,” they stated, adding that despite repeated requests, no office was ready to address the serious problem that was causing severe hardships to the beverage manufacturers.
They further said that the Beverages Industries Association strongly demanded from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government and the Secretary Food Department to immediately intervene and direct the KP Halal Food Authority to withdraw these unfair charges and restore the previous procedures of PSQCA as it was not just a problem of the industry but a matter of fair regulation and business sustainability.
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