The Congress government in Himachal Pradesh on Wednesday issued an order requiring the owners of all restaurants and food stalls in the state to display their names and identification cards.
This came a day after Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath directed eateries in the state to prominently display the names and addresses of their operators, proprietors and managers.
On Wednesday, Vikramaditya Singh, Himachal Pradesh’s minister for public works department and urban development, said the state government had issued a similar order “for the convenience of customers”.
“We held a meeting with the urban development and the municipal corporation,” Singh was quoted as saying by ANI. “To make sure that hygienic food is sold, a decision has been taken for all the street vendors...especially those selling edible items.”
He said the decision was made after “people expressed their concerns and doubts”.
The announcement came after a meeting of a seven-member committee formed to frame a policy on street vendors, reported The Indian Express.
The committee was constituted by Himachal Pradesh Assembly Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania against the backdrop of communal tensions pertaining to Shimla’s Sanjauli mosque. Members of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Vishva Hindu Parishad have claimed that the mosque has been constructed illegally.
The tensions were triggered by a fight between two shopkeepers from different communities and led to Hindutva groups demanding mandatory registration of migrant workers as well as the demolition of portions of the mosque.
“There was unrest in our state in the last few day,” Vikramaditya Singh told The Indian Express. “Our decisions are not driven by any other state. The display of identity cards will be mandatory for all vendors – be it Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian or from any other community.”
Singh claimed that the street vending policy is being formulated on the instructions of the High Court. “Recent unrest was linked to the absence of a strong vending policy,” the minister said.
BJP leader Randhir Sharma, who is also part of the seven-member committee, said Singh had “started making statements before we arrived at a conclusion and formed a policy”.
“However, displaying ID cards of owners of eateries and food stalls should be a must in the state,” Sharma was quoted as saying by The Indian Express.
On Tuesday, the Uttar Pradesh government claimed that the directive to display the names of food outlets’ owners was aimed at ensuring cleanliness in eateries. However, the order came barely two months after a controversy erupted over a government directive that had asked eateries along the Kanwar Yatra pilgrimage route to display their owners’ names.
The state government had defended its diktat before the Supreme Court, saying that “even small confusions regarding the kind of food Kanwariyas are served has the potential to hurt their religious sentiments”.
The Supreme Court issued an interim stay on the order on July 22 after a batch of petitions argued that it would facilitate discrimination on the grounds of religion and caste.
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