Worldwide, food-borne diseases are a major health concern. Street food is perceived to be also implicated in this disease burden. Above 2.5 billion people all over the world eat street foods every day. The present status of food hygiene among street food vendors of India is dismal. Street food vending is an integral part of markets giving vitality & interesting environment to Indian cities. Street food is also often the USP of a particular locality providing tourist attraction. It gives people affordable local foods at convenient locations. This plays a vital role in the urban economy. It provides self-employment for lakhs of people. It is a flexible link in economic food supply chains with low capital investment. There is a definite need for training of vendors on the basic principles of sanitation, manufacturing quality and safety besides consumer rights and education.
Against this backdrop, a multi-disciplinary approach was contemplated to develop Chandigarh as a ‘Safe Food Town’ in tandem with its declaration as a Smart city. Department of Community Medicine and SPH, PGIMER, Chandigarh and Municipal Corporation of Chandigarh under the dynamic leadership of Mr KK Yadav, Commissioner MCC, ably supported by Mr Vivek Trivedi, jointly initiated a project entitled “Convergence of initiative of Women, Child and Social development agencies of Chandigarh for mainstreaming Street Vendors’ Welfare through integrated training enterprise of its Municipal Corporation with special focus on street food hygiene”.
As a part of this project, 20 workshops were held in phase 1 and capacity building of more than 600 street food vendors has been done. Now, second phase of this project has also been sanctioned. As a part of this project three pilot model smart food carts designed under the supervision of Dr Kumar Pushkar, as a part of his PhD thesis on training of street vendors, guided by Dr Sonu Goel and Dr Amarjeet Singh,Department of Community Medicine and SPH, PGIMER, Chandigarh
Publication of this book and release of 2 short films on,” DEVELOPING CHANDIGARH into a SAFE STREET FOOD VENDING TOWN” reflect the culmination of PHASE I of the Municipal Corporation of Chandigarh’s joint venture with our department. Credit goes to the team efforts by Drs Ishwar Preet, Divya Sharma, Mask Theatre Director Ravinder, Tejinder, Drs Arun Aggarwal, Poonam Khanna,Tanvi Kiran,Bijaya Kumar Padhi. Resource persons included Dr Geeta Mehra, MCM DAV College, Ms Sangeeta Wardhan, Chairperson, Women & Child Protection Agency Jay Prakash Kant, CIHM-42, S Harkit Singh, Banking expert, NINE students & Dietetics department, PGIMER.
