The Uttar Pradesh Food Safety and Drug Administration has suspended operations at a railway base kitchen in Lucknow after inspections found shortcomings in hygiene, food storage, drinking-water testing, pest control and mandatory records across catering units in the state.
The inspections covered 41 railway catering units and two establishments supplying food to airlines. FSDA teams inspected railway-linked base kitchens and food-storage premises in Lucknow, Saharanpur, Kanpur Nagar, Agra, Chandauli, Gorakhpur, Ghaziabad, Moradabad, Varanasi, Bareilly and Jhansi.
The agency said deficiencies were found at 30 units. These included missing drinking-water testing reports, employee health certificates, pest-control records, stock registers and food-grade certificates for packaging materials. Notices were issued to the concerned establishments, directing them to correct the shortcomings.
In Lucknow, operations at a railway base kitchen were suspended immediately following the inspection. The FSDA also cancelled the food registration of an establishment in Saharanpur. The action affects facilities that form part of the wider food-supply chain serving railway passengers, rather than only food counters located on station platforms.
In Kanpur Nagar, officials seized 978 kg of a food item that was stored without a label or details of its manufacturing and use-by dates. The FSDA also collected samples of 26 food items and sent them to a laboratory for quality testing. The source report did not specify the laboratory results or identify the inspected establishments by name.
An FSDA official said the inspections also found employees working without shoe covers and masks, unavailable records and missing certificates. The agency issued improvement notices to the units concerned and instructed them to rectify the deficiencies.
Food units supplying airlines at Lucknow and Varanasi airports were inspected as part of the same exercise. The inspections place attention on the less visible facilities that prepare, store and distribute food before it reaches passengers on trains and flights. Compliance at these kitchens depends not only on food preparation but also on traceability, water testing, pest control, worker hygiene and documented stock management.
The immediate next steps are the correction of deficiencies by the notified units and laboratory testing of the 26 collected food samples. The FSDA has not yet released the test results or announced whether further enforcement action will follow against the inspected railway and airline catering establishments.
