LAHORE: The Punjab Food Authority (PFA) has penalised 504 wedding halls and marquees over poor arrangements besides issuing warning notices to 1,295 others during a province-wide inspection drive in Punjab.

The authority also closed down two marriage halls for using expired food ingredients during the preparation of different food dishes. Further, the authority discarded 424kg ofstalefood,190kg of prohibited chemicals, 182kg of expired ingredients, 183 litres of fabricated drinks and 80 litres of substandard used cooking oil.The PFA said that food safety teams took action against food business operators (FBOs) for failing to meet the food safety standards, poor cleanliness arrangements, abundance of insects in production areas and using expired ingredients.

Warning notices were issued over minor issues and directed FBOs to bring improvement as per the Punjab Pure Food Regulations.

PFA`s watchdogs inspected more than 1,950 marriage halls and marquees across the different divisions of Punjab, including 606in Lahore,142in Faisalabad, 132inSahiwal,202inRawalpindi, 458 in Gujranwala, 105 inSargodha, 156 in Multan and 61 in Dera Ghazi Khan division.

The PFA urged the public to report on PFA helpline 1223 in case of any complaint regarding food.

LDA CITY: Commissioner and Lahore Development Authority (LDA) Director General Muhammad Ali Randhawa discussed the possession of LDA City Jinnah Sector C Block at a meeting on Tuesday.

In the meeting, an action plan was presented for the possession of plots of C Block of Jinnah Sector.

Mr Randhawa said plot owners of LDA City would hear a good news very soon. He said that inthe next month C block and in the next phase, possession will be given in other blocks of Jinnah sector as well.

The LDA City C Block includes 1,500 plots of five and 10 marlas one and two kanals. The sports complex in LDA City will be completed soon.

In the meeting, the progress of ongoing works on services and facilities related to C Block was reviewed.

A detailed briefing was given about streetlights, signboards, road construction and other facilities. Briefing was also given about the progress on the construction of the mosque, park and other development works.