Officials of the Tamil Nadu Food Safety and Drug Administration Department raided seven godowns in Attur taluk and seized 48,733 bags of sago that were nearing expiry date, but were stocked for sales.
Based on complaints that sago were sold in the market even after the expiry date, a team led by District Designated Officer T. Anuradha and food safety inspectors raided the godowns in Thammampatti, Keeripatti, Olipuram and Gangavalli in the past 10 days.
Commodity loans
Officials found that all the goods were under the custody of collateral management companies as the manufacturers had pledged their goods and obtained commodity loans from many nationalised banks.
The manufacturing date in most of the bags were mentioned as January, 2016 as the manufacturer pledged the goods and obtained loans.
Officials learnt that after repaying the bank loans only, the goods will be released after which it will be taken to the market for sale.
Officials found that recently manufactured sago were sold immediately as they manufacturers reaped good profit. But sago bags produced before six months were not sold as the manufacturer was unable to get good price.
On Thursday, during their raid in Attur, officials found 5,357 bags that were about to expire.
Of this, 3,500 bags were found without manufacturing date or the details of the manufacturer.
Samples were taken and sent to the Government Food Laboratory in Udayapatti. All the bags were kept in the godowns under the custody of the collateral management companies and sealed by the officials.
“Based on the laboratory report, further action will be initiated”, officials said.
The manufacturing date in most of the bags were mentioned as January, 2016
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