Rotten ingredients, unauthorised industrial dyes, and expired pharmaceuticals stored alongside fresh meat: despite an unprecedented barrage of regulatory raids, fines, and legal actions, Chattogram’s food safety landscape remains critically compromised.
Data from the Directorate of National Consumer Rights Protection (DNCRP) and the Bangladesh Food Safety Authority (BFSA) reveals an aggressive enforcement blitz across the division.
Yet, local health experts warn that rogue traders and unhygienic eateries continue to put public health at grave risk.
Millions in fines, unrelenting offenses
Between July and September this year, the DNCRP conducted 664 market inspections across Chattogram division, penalising 702 establishments and levying Tk93.99 lakh in spot fines.
An additional Tk4.86 lakh was realised through administrative dispute resolutions, bringing the DNCRP’s three-month penalty total to nearly Tk98.86 lakh.
Concurrently, the BFSA hit 51 establishments with Tk89.86 lakh in penalties over the first four months of the year, backed by Food Safety Court judgments in April that levied another Tk16.50 lakh.
Specialised mobile courts and summary trials penalised 15 firms for Tk51.31 lakh in August and 31 establishments for Tk18.85 lakh in September.
Despite these staggering figures, unhygienic kitchens and illicit chemical additives remain rampant across the metropolitan area.
Dr HM Hamidullah Mehedi, Assistant Professor of Medicine at Chattogram General Hospital, warned that the consequences for unsuspecting consumers are severe.
He explained that consuming food contaminated with harmful chemicals or prepared under filthy conditions triggers severe food poisoning, leading to violent vomiting, acute abdominal pain, and diarrhoea.
Mehedi emphasised that people directly involved in preparing and serving meals must understand basic hygiene requirements, as keeping preparation areas clean dramatically curtails microbial cross-contamination.
Gross violations exposed in city raids
Recent enforcement drives inside Chattogram city read like a catalogue of food prep horrors, uncovering serious irregularities involving storage, ingredient quality, and price gouging.
During a targeted raid near Chattogram Medical College Hospital, a DNCRP team led by Deputy Director Md Fayez Ullah slapped Tk2.85 lakh in fines across five establishments.
The CMC Cafe and the hospital’s fourth-class employees’ canteen were each fined Tk1 lakh after inspectors discovered cooked meals stored directly beside raw fish and meat in unhygienic refrigerators.
Nearby, Swapna Medical Store and JBL Surgical were fined a combined Tk75,000 for stocking expired and illegal imported medicines, while Medicop received a Tk10,000 penalty for selling green coconuts above prescribed prices.
Action was similarly taken in the city’s Bayezid area at Nayahat, where AR Traders, Messrs Monwara Corporation, and Anannya Trade Centre were penalised for selling gas cylinders above fixed rates and failing to display mandatory price lists.
In the same neighborhood, Sultan Paikari Bazar was fined Tk25,000 for manufacturing commercial rose water with prohibited chemical agents and selling unauthorised ghee, while Shahi Chattala Ors Biryani was penalised for lacing dishes with dangerous synthetic dyes.
In separate drives, Tayef Restaurant was fined Tk25,000 for substituting harmful chemical ingredients for fresh green chillies, and Tuhin Enterprise was hit with a Tk20,000 fine for packaging oil-soaked dates under unsanitary conditions.
The hill district disparity and enforcement gaps
The official enforcement data also exposes a dramatic geographical divide across the division.
While urban centres on the plains saw dense regulatory activity, led by the Divisional Office’s 176 drives yielding Tk29.94 lakh in fines, alongside strong showing in Cumilla (Tk12.12 lakh), Chattogram district (Tk10.58 lakh), and Cox’s Bazar (Tk9.82 lakh), and the three hill districts of Rangamati, Khagrachhari, and Bandarban recorded just 29 combined market inspections over three months, resulting in a modest Tk1.99 lakh in total penalties.
However, regulators note that inspection numbers alone cannot establish the full picture, which depends heavily on market scale, population, and routine local monitoring.
Under the Consumer Rights Protection Act, 2009, whistleblowing citizens who file validated written complaints are entitled to receive 25 per cent of the fine collected from guilty establishments.
Across Chattogram division, consumers lodged 1,380 complaints during the three-month period, of which 1,359 were successfully resolved, resulting in financial rewards totalling Tk1.19 lakh distributed among 50 vigilant complainants.
Yet out of 19 complaints filed across the hill districts, not a single one resulted in a conviction or financial payout.
DNCRP Chattogram Deputy Director Md Fayez Ullah noted that incomplete public petitions submitted online or by post often lack verified business names or clear addresses, preventing the department from proceeding with legal hearings or separating legitimate claims from commercial disputes.
