Samosas destroyed by the thousands in Goa

Here's a shocker for samosa lovers: Thousands of samosas were seized and are set to be destroyed as Goa's Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) found them being made in unhygienic conditions.

The FDA conducted raids in Ponda, 30 km from the state capital, Friday.

FDA officials told IANS that the raids at four manufacturing units yielded nearly 4,000 samosas and several hundred more were seized from sweetmeat shops and eateries, where they had been purchased for retail sale to customers.

"We received complaints that samosas were being manufactured in unhygienic conditions and were being supplied throughout Ponda. We raided four such places and seized thousands of samosas," Food Safety Officer Rajiv Korde told IANS.

While most of the seized samosas, a potato-stuffed fried snack, will be destroyed according to FDA protocol, samples will be sent for scientific examination to establish contamination.

The raids were conducted at Durga Bhatt, Sapna Park, Vithoba Temple and Jai Singh Nagar, all in the Ponda area.

"They manufacture samosas round-the-clock and supply it every hour or two to small restaurants and sweetmeat and savoury stores. In almost all the places we raided, there was rain water leaking from the roof and the conditions were very, very unhygienic," Korde said.

Korde said the four manufacturing units had been issued show-cause notices some months ago, after similar complaints were received, and the units had written back saying they had stopped manufacturing samosas.

"They manufactured three to four thousand samosas everyday," the official said.