₹4.77 crore spent on infrastructure. ₹19 crore more on equipment and chemicals. But no staff. No testing. No safety checks. That’s right; a state with 54 food inspectors and zero functional labs is relying on private labs in Hyderabad and Chennai to test its food. Tamil Nadu, by comparison, has over 250 inspectors and two working labs. Why does this matter? Because without local testing, food safety enforcement is slow, reactive, and expensive. The lab can handle 1,000 samples a month; if someone’s hired to run it. Recruitment started, but some hired staff got shifted to Tirumala. Now, the state’s food safety score with FSSAI suffers, and NABL accreditation remains a dream. Money was never the problem. People were. And that’s the real gap in Andhra’s food safety system. #FoodSafety #AndhraPradesh #GovernmentJobs #FSSAI #PublicInfrastructure