Kolkata: Nizam’s, Kareem’s and Arsalan are among 10 restaurants that have been allowed to reopen their doors to patrons after Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) found that the popular eateries had addressed their deficiencies which had led to them being shut down a week ago. A KMC official said 12 more eateries were “under active consideration” for permission to reopen.“We inspected 10 restaurants and found that they were now fit to reopen. They were shut down for violations of food safety norms. We are also actively considering giving nod for reopening to a dozen restaurants any day,” said the official.KMC issued suspension notices to 40 establishments on Sept 8, following a week-long food safety drive. Among those that were shut were Nizam’s, Kareem’s on Mirza Ghalib Street, and an Arsalan outlet in Nagerbazar. Suspension notices were issued to 20 other eateries later.The suspension notices meant the establishments were barred from serving food to customers and had two weeks to make corrections, failing which, they would have faced stricter punishment.Storing food without tags mentioning when it was first stored, and the use-by date, using ingredients not permitted by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), and using colour hazardous to health were among some of the common irregularities found at the restaurants.Sources said the eateries applied to KMC after making the necessary changes. An official said almost all the eateries they had inspected over the last two days had brought in measures to address concerns flagged by food inspectors. “Our inspectors have found noticeable improvement in the hygiene of the restaurants,” said a KMC official. While Kareem’s opened on Tuesday, Nizam’s will open on Wednesday. Nizam’s renovation will be completed by Tuesday night, said Samar Nag, the current owner of the 98-year-old restaurant. “The KMC team found colour in our biryani beyond the permissible limit. We have now decided to use only saffron in the coloured biryani. We will also have a white biriyani. These are two separate biryani dishes that we are going to introduce. These will be prepared in limited volume initially and then scaled up if we get positive customer feedback,” said Nag.He said the employees were concerned with the shutdown of the eatery, especially with the festive season kicking in. This is the time of year when business picks up. “It was a traumatic experience for us. Employees were worried about salary and bonus,” said Nag.A few sweet shops were also cleared for reopening. KMC administrator and municipal commissioner Smita Pandey had said she was disappointed with the cleanliness in some of the sweet shops.Sources said the laboratory results of samples that were collected were yet to arrive on Tuesday. Over 2,700 samples were collected during the food safety drive.
