Mathura milk samples collected after death of 3 children found substandard

Agra: Barely six months after three children and an Anganwadi worker died in a Mathura school, the Food Safety and Drug Administration (FSDA) on Wednesday registered a case against Akshaypatra Foundation for supplying substandard milk to the school under the midday meal scheme. The samples were collected by the food watchdogs and sent to a government testing lab in Lucknow. The foundation was booked uner the Food Safety and Standard Act after the results came out recently.

Confirming the move, food safety officer, AK Gupta, said the report received from the lab had branded the samples as “substandard”. He said according to Food Safety and Standard Act, 2006, 31 (zx) "an article of food shall be deemed to be sub-standard if it does not meet the specified standards but not so as to render the article of food “unsafe”.

Gupta said a case has been registered under Section 26- 2(II) against Akshay Patra Foundation. They would have to pay the penalty for sub-standard food under Section 51 of the Food safety and standard act 2006. According to section 51, Any person who whether by himself or by any other person on his behalf manufactures for sale or stores or sells or distributes or imports any article of food for human consumption which is sub-standard, shall be liable to a penalty which may extend to five lakh rupees.

Spokesperson of Akshaypatra foundation, Anant Veer Das said that he was yet to receive a copy of the report.

Three children and a 35-year-old Anganwadi worker died and 40 others children were hospitalized in Mathura on May 5 after they consumed milk as part of the mid-day meal at a government primary school in Kanshi Ram Nagar colony of the city. The state government had ordered a magisterial inquiry into the incident. Incidentally, some of the children admitted to the hospital are not students of the ill-fated school but had fallen ill after consuming milk from sachets brought back home by their siblings. Anant Veer Das of Akshay Patra Foundation, which supplied mid-day meals in Mathura schools, had said, "We really don't know what happened, as the same milk was consumed by children of other schools and they are all fine." He said the same packaged milk was supplied to 2,041 schools on Wednesday for over 63,000 children in the district by an Agra-based distributor.”