Milk testing gadgets lie idle as officials complain about shortage of facility

Lab at the Council for Food Research and Development

Men and machines for ensuring milk quality remain underutilised as the enforcement agencies blame shortage of hands and lab facilities for tests.

The Council for Food Research and Development (CFRD) located at Konni in Pathanamthitta is running short of milk samples for quality analysis. “Mostly, it’s the samples volunteered by the milk producers that are tested here though the labs are equipped for handling a lot more samples,” said M.K. Mukundan, director of the Council.

Incidentally, the Food Safety Authority (FSA) officials and the Health officials of the Kochi Corporation had complained that the absence of lab facilities and shortage of hands for collecting milk samples were defeating the drive against the sale of spurious, contaminated and low quality milk during the Onam season.

The officials of the enforcement agencies conceded that they were unable to ensure the quality of milk in the State with the limited resources available to them. The long delay in obtaining the results was also defeating the drive against low quality milk, they said.

Dr. Mukundan said the labs of the council could carry out microbiological tests for as many as 200 to 400 samples a day. This includes microbial analysis for Total Bacterial Count, E.coli (faecal contamination), S. aureus (for checking the personal hygiene of those handling milk), salmonella (typhoid-causing pathogen) V. cholera and Listerias monocytogenes (pathogens which can cause abortion in pregnant women).

The milkoscan installed in CFRD can analyse 9 chemical and physical parameters of milk at the rate of 20 samples per hour. It would take hardly three days for carrying out the microbial and chemical tests. “In some cases, hardly a day is required for releasing the results,” Dr. Mukundan said.

The milk tester could analysis 20 milk samples for chemical parameters like fat, lactose, moisture and milk freezing points, which are the indicators of purity of milk, in 15 minutes. On a given day, the tester could be put to use to analyse around 100 samples, he said.

Change the rules

The Council Director, while offering to cooperate with the FSA for testing samples, suggested that an authorisation for its officials to collect milk samples for analysis would help address the issue.

Officials of the Dairy Development Department too demanded empowerment of its qualified dairy technologists to collect milk samples. There are around 150 qualified dairy technologists who could be deputed for the job. The labs of the department in all the 14 districts and the two State labs located at Alathur and Palakkad were also capable of quick analysis, said V. Unni, joint director of the Department.