Eggs pass Manipur fitness test- Sale drops in Imphal markets after rumours on social media

Manipur food safety officials with the collected egg samples in Imphal. 

Imphal, July 13: The Manipur health department's food safety wing today cleared the eggs suspected to have contained plastic and collected at random from Imphal city market over the past few days.

After posts on social media about alleged plastic eggs entering Indian market, including Manipur, were widely circulated, the food safety wing of the state health department collected 20 egg samples from the city wholesalers.

State food analyst Ch. Sanajaoba Meitei said necessary tests had been conducted on the samples and the eggs were found normal with no evidence of the alleged plastic in the tested ones.

The samples were brought to the state food testing laboratory on July 6, where physical, chemical and structural tests were conducted.

"With the news of the sale of plastic or artificial eggs in the market doing the rounds on social media, officials of the food safety wing of Imphal West collected samples from egg wholesalers of Ngari Gulli of Imphal city. Most of the eggs were brought from Andhra Pradesh," an official source said.

The tests were also conducted after reports that a family in Imphal found one egg among seven, bought from the local market last month, did not match the colour of the other six when fried after boiling.

The family told a local daily that when the suspicious looking egg was burnt with a candle, it smelt like plastic.

"The state food testing lab is currently conducting several tests and there are no signs of any plastic rice or eggs," state food safety consultant Dr S. Bimalkumari said.

Several cases of adulteration of edible items were detected in Manipur in the recent past.

Three persons were fined Rs 1,50,000, Rs 10,000 and Rs 5000 earlier this month for adulterating edible oil. The three were pulled up following a complaint to the food safety officials after 20 people fell ill during a community feast in Bishnupur.

Official sources said three city fruit sellers were also arrested for using a chemical as a banana ripening agent last month. The three were granted bail. Police seized some adulterated bananas and the unknown chemical that was used is being verified.

Sale of eggs dropped in the Imphal markets after rumours swirled about the presence of plastic in eggs. "I used to sell about 500 eggs daily before the rumour of plastic eggs spread. Now the sale has dropped to nearly half after all this talk about plastic eggs," Raju Yadav, a grocery shop owner in Imphal city, said.

Official sources said chief minister N. Biren Singh has directed the food safety wing of the health department to be on strict vigil to check the sale of adulterated food items.