DEHRADUN/SHIMLA: A three-day long Repurposed Used Cooking Oil (RUCO) awareness campaign launched by Uttarakhand’s Food Safety and Drug Administration and SDC Foundation in the city has shown a way to the other cities as to how to encourage the Business outlets to make biodiesel from the used cooking oil.
The campaign has put a spotlight on the 'carcinogenic' dimension of the used cooking oils being used by not only sweet shops and dhabas, but also by the food courts, hotel, restaurants and fast food chains in cities and towns.
Irony is that many states in the Himalayan region and outside are NOT aware about the health hazards of the used cooking oils to consumers.
Neither state food safety and drug administration, nor consumers and general public care a hoot about the harmful effects of the used oils on human heath, revealed the experts.
The Dehradun city and state administration has taken a lead in this direction.
All the state health authorities should come out from their cocoons and launch similar campaigns in all the cities ranging from Shimla, Srinagar, Ladakh to Kohima and Itanagar to Imphal and Guwahati as menace of used cooking oil pose serious heath hazards to consumers.
This campaign was launched after a gap two years as directed by Food Safety Commissioner Radhika Jha. More than 400 litres of used cooking oil was also collected during the campaign.
The RUCO campaign run by CSIR-IIP, Food Safety and Drug Administration, and SDC Foundation had begun three years ago here.
The campaign was closed for some time due to Covid and other reasons, now the campaign has been intensified again, said Anoop Nautiyal, president, SDC foundation.
The organisers sensitized the Food business outlets like hotels, restaurants, cafes, pubs and confectionery to make biofuel.
All of them were told about the disadvantages of repeated use of used oil. The owners of the food outlets as well as the kitchen staff were informed about the possible diseases caused by used cooking oil and their causes in detail under this campaign.
It was also explained how the used oil can be taken out of the food chain and how economic benefits can be made from this used oil by joining the RUCO campaign.
Ganesh Kandwal, Deputy Commissioner, Food and Drugs Department said the three-day program is getting good response and food business outlets are taking interest in it.
He said the problems due to repeated use of edible oil under the programme would be solved. Information on the number of times the cooking oil can be used and how it can then be given to the aggregator, was also given to the outlets staff and owners, he added. 
District Food Safety Officer PC Joshi said that efforts are being made to involve more and more people in this program to eliminate the use of cooking oil from the food chain.
He expressed hope that this initiative will attract even more food outlets in the coming time.
Anoop Nautiyal of SDC Foundation said that his organization is developing a supply chain of used cooking oil from various food outlets.
He said that apart from Doon Valley, efforts are being made to develop the Used Cooking Oil supply chain in Mussoorie, Rishikesh, Vikasnagar with the help of the government.
As part of the RUCO awareness campaign, 15 food business outlets were involved in the last three days.
These include Kalsang Cafe, The Black Pearl, Cafe De Piccolo, Singh Soup Bar, Barbecue Nation, JSR Continental, Rahul Sweet Shop, Chanchal Sweet Shop, Aanchal Sweet Shop, Kumar Sweet Shop etc.
RUCO campaign was attended by Ramesh Singh, Food Safety Officer of Dehradun and Praveen Upreti, Head RUCO Division, Pyare Lal, Head Plastics Division and Sunit Verma from SDC Foundation.
