77 per cent of juices, 97 per cent of ice at stations are contaminated

The video showing a man at Kurla station mixing the lemon juice with his hands went viral last week

Your go-to nimbu pani every summer might not be the best thing to reach for at Mumbai's railway stations this season. An inspection by the BMC's health department has revealed that 77 per cent of the lemon juice samples collected from across the city have failed the food safety and hygiene test. A video showing a man preparing lemon juice at Kurla station in an unhygienic manner prompted these checks.

Apart from the drink itself, the ice used in it too was found unsuitable for human consumption in 97 per cent of the samples. The seemingly-harmless lemon juice Mumbaikars often sip on to beat the heat, might just contain bacteria like the E-coli and result in serious health complications including hepatitis and other infections. Following the unhealthy lemon juice video going viral, the BMC inspected as many as 222 juice stalls across the city, including the ones of major railway stations like Dadar, Churchgate, CST, Kurla, and Mumbai Central among others.

The nimbu pani sold at roadside joints and at railway stations is not prepared in the most hygienic way, BMC officials said. File Pic

The BMC's health department had also last month inspected 236 sugarcane juice stalls around the city (Chembur, Byculla, Kanjurmarg, and Bandra). This inspection too had revealed that as many as 221 samples were unfit for human consumption. Here too, almost 91 per cent of the 156 ice samples collected were contaminated. Use of unfiltered and dirty water, along with the improper handling of juices or eatables, and unhealthy ice can be the reasons behind contamination.

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Dirty water and manual handling of the drink are major causes of contamination. File Pic

"Consumption of such contaminated juices and ice can land people in hospitals. When the lemons are squeezed manually without maintaining proper hygiene standards, there are high chances of contamination. Improper handling of fruit juices and soft drinks enable the growth of fungi and molds in them," said Dr Padmaja Keskar, executive director of the BMC health department. She cautioned consumers to be practice caution while consuming road-side products.

The civic body also inspected 195 other stalls violating hygiene and safety norms and collected 191 food samples from them, of which only 43 were found fit for
consumption.

Following a visual inspection of the stalls, officials choose their samples based on their rough estimate of an eatery's hygiene standards. The BMC had last month destroyed, 15,645 kg of ice, 3,838 kg of fruits and around 10,000 litres of juice including sugarcane juice after they were found to be adulterated. "Fruits like watermelons, muskmelon help a lot in dealing with the summer heat but consuming them from road-side stalls can do more harm than good. Vomiting and diarrhea are just some of the illnesses they can cause.

Contamination of salad vegetables by E Coli and Salmonella bacteria are the most common causes of food poisoning," aid Dr Pallavi Kharade, a nutritionist at civic-run Sion Hospital. Many factors can lead to these fruits being unhealthy - manual handling, not washing them, use of dirty knives to chop them, and their improper transport and storage.

156 Samples of ice used in sugarcane juice collected
91 Percentage of ice samples found contaminated

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