QUALITY OF MILK - SC verdict brings relief to consumers

Amritsar, February 4

The Supreme Court (SC) verdict directing the state governments to ensure quality of milk and to give up its "lenient" attitude towards those responsible for adulteration of milk and milk products with hazardous synthetic substances has come as a respite to the consumers in the city who often complain about adulterated and substandard milk supply. 

A resident of Cheel Mandi, Parminder Singh, said the reaction of the state government in keeping a tab on the hygienic standards of eatables was far from satisfactory. This despite the fact that the Union Government admitted before the SC that 70 per cent of the milk in the country was found adulterated in one way or the other in 2012. The situation is no different in the city. 

The field is open for unscrupulous sellers and dealers, as a majority of the city residents prefer to procure "loose" milk. Milk Plan officials say that, on an average, there is 10 per cent annual increase in the consumption of pouched milk in Amritsar.

The only organised body selling packaged and pasteurised milk here is Milk Plant, Verka, which is a unit of the Markfed. 

The milk plant periodically holds quality tests on "loose" milk to convince customers to turn to packaged milk. Sources in the plant said many a time, adulteration using water, caustic soda, urea and castor oil was detected.

Adulteration using water, caustic oil to increase the shelf life of the produce had been found. As per standard specifications, solid, not fat, must be at least 8.5 in cow milk and over nine in buffalo milk. 

This despite the fact that the new Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 was introduced in the country. Besides, the district does not have any food testing lab and each sample has to be dispatched to the Chandigarh laboratory. It took around 20 days to get the result of the food test. 

It may be mentioned here that the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act 1954 was replaced with the Food Standard and Safety Act in August 2011. As per the new Act, the penalty on the adulteration using water ranged from Rs 25,000 to Rs 2 lakh, while the presence of injurious ingredients could land an offender in jail for life and penalty up to Rs 10 lakh. 

Dr Shiv Karan Kahlon, District Health Officer (DHO), who is the designated officer for the implementation of the act, while talking about the exact number of halwai shops in the city, said the data was not yet available as the registration under the new Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, was undergoing.

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Dr Shiv Karan Kahlon, District Health Officer, said Amritsar is not the only city that does not have a laboratorty and each district in the state sends its samples to Chandigarh. He stressed that his department regularly confiscates milk, milk products and other eatables to ensure quality. The DHO said that confiscation of adulterated eatables was a continuous process and his department was regularly spotting spurious eatables.