Food safety department conducts raids at Delhi sweetshops ahead of Holi

The Food Safety Standard Authority of India (FSSAI), the apex food regulator has directed food commissioners of all the States and UTs to keep a strong surveillance on milk products.

Last week, Delhi govt’s Department of Food Safety received a tipoff regarding adulterated sweets. 

HIGHLIGHTS

• Special drive will be carried out till 21st of March
• milk products will be checked for adulterants
• Shops in CP, Karol Bagh, Bengali Market being raided

Ahead of Holi celebrations in the city, the Delhi government’s Department of Food Safety is conducting a series of raids at various sweet shops across the city to check the quality of gujjiya (a sweet deep-fried dumpling) and milk products.

Last week the department received a tipoff regarding adulterated sweets being sold in the market which led to food safety officials continuously picking up samples from the shops. These areas include: CP, Karol Bagh, Bengali Market, Chandini Chowk etc.

The special drive will be carried out till 21st of March. The Food Safety Standard Authority of India (FSSAI), the apex food regulator has directed food commissioners of all the States and UTs to keep a strong surveillance on milk products (specially products like Khoya, paneer, dahi, ghee etc) to check their microbiological quality and presence of adulterants.

Lakhpat Rai Garg, the food commissioner of Delhi said, All sweet shops located in Delhi are under the surveillance of the food safety department. We have received few complaints from public that sub-standard sweets are being sold in the market. Therefore, we have alerted our food safety inspector to pick up as many as samples from the market. All collected samples tested at our laboratory for investigation and the officials will submit a detailed report to us.

So far, we have collected 112 samples of sweets including Cheena, Ghee, Paneer, Koya, Gujjiya, besan ladoo and other milk based sweets are main items on radar. We want to ensure that safe and quality sweet items reach to the consumer. Garg added. In the recent past, the department has picked 179 milk samples and 213 milk products samples respectively.

Out of 179 milk samples, we found 33 samples sub-standard and 3 samples were misbranded. Among 213 milk products, 3 were found unsafe’ and 40 sub-standard and 7 samples were misbranded, informed the official.