Chandigarh, June 8
The sale of synthetic milk continues unabated and even repeated raids have failed to deter those engaged in this dirty business. One of the interesting revelations of The Tribune survey has been the limit on the number of milk samples taken by the authorities concerned every month. It is virtually been a convention for the past several decades to take 10 to 15 samples a month. Interestingly, only a couple of these fail the tests.
To evade sampling, some of the enterprising players in the synthetic milk trade get the vehicles used in transportation of their illicit product painted “milk not for sale”. Normally, sampling is done when food inspectors posing as customers buy milk, then seal the sample and send it to the public analyst for testing. The health department officials maintain that any product that is not for sale can neither by prevented from transportation from one place to another nor can be seized for sampling.
Kapurthala civil surgeon Ranbir Singh says the health officials took 15 samples of milk and milk products last month. Surprisingly, only four samples have failed during the past two months. During summers, more samples are taken as the number of complaints of adulterated milk supply goes up.
Initially, under the initiative of the state health minister Laxmi Kanta Chawla, a massive campaign was launched to tackle the menace. Raids were conducted and the department even managed to seize a large quantity of synthetic milk from Rajpura along with equipment used to manufacture it. But nothing moved seriously beyond that point.
The drive seems to have lost steam now.
Unscrupulous elements also benefit from the time taken to analyse the samples. Insiders reveal that results
are never out in less than a month. At times, samples are even traced to the laboratory and are allegedly replaced. “By the time the report is received, most of the spurious or synthetic milk finds its way into the market,” admits an official.
There should be zero-tolerance laws for those engaged in food adulteration, demand consumers. But the strong lobby of milkmen, including those in the cooperative sector, prevents the state from amending the antiquated laws.
A report from Jalandhar blames migrants in the milk trade for easy availability of spurious milk in the market. There are nearly 400 dairies in Jalandhar, besides a large number of individual dairy farmers, who supply milk to the consumers. Though Verka, the milk cooperative of the state, buys most of the milk, other milk processing private agencies procures the left over.
Roop Lal, health officer of Jalandhar, admits that problem gets aggravated during summer months when the gap between demand and supply rises. The production of spurious milk products also increases during the festival season.
Earlier, during summer, district authorities used to ban the manufacturing of milk products like khoya, paneer and sweets, including burfi. Sangrur civil surgeon Dalip Kumar says his department has initiated a public awareness programme to caution public against synthetic milk.
In Bathinda, assistant civil surgeon IB Aggarwal admitted that the pace of collecting milk samples was slow in the past. “But now with the summer season on, we have stepped up measures against those engaged in the trade. The guilty won’t be spared,” he added. Joginder Singh, deputy director, dairy development department, revealed that out of 68 samples taken so far, 41 failed due to lack of adequate quantity of fat. No case of presence of chemicals like urea was reported, he added.
Concluded
With inputs from PK Jaiswar (Amritsar), Bipin Bhardwaj (Jalandhar), Dharmendra Joshi (Kapurthala), Sushil Goyal (Sangrur), Varinder Singh (Patiala), Gurdeep Mann (Fatehgarh Sahib), Megha Mann (Ropar) and Rajay Deep (Bathinda).
