Cheap or spurious? Khoya price raises eyebrows

Manmeet Singh Gill
Tribune News Service
Amritsar, August 8

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With an average 18-20 per cent yield of khoya from standard quality milk — 5.5 fat and 8.4 SNF (solids not fat) — it requires a little over 5 kg of milk to get 1 kg of khoya. The standard quality milk, even if purchased in bulk directly for the producer, is not available for less than Rs 42 per kg.

At this price, one needs to spend Rs 210 on the milk alone for getting 1 kg of khoya, but astonishingly the khoya is priced at Rs 180 in the local market. The other costs include heating (for around four-five hours), labour cost, refrigeration cost, transportation cost and of course profit margin.

Prabhjot Singh, a dairy farmer from Badarpur village, near Bhikhiwind said, “The cost of making 1 kg of khoya comes to around to Rs 450. It is just not feasible to sell the same at Rs 180.”

Now have a look at the spurious khoya market. On November 3 last year when the Tandrust Punjab mission was at peak, the Health Department had seized 400 kg of spurious khoya from four villages — Baba Deep Singh Nagar, Bhullar, Manawala and Tapiala.

Earlier on August 23 last year, the department had seized 250 kg of spurious khoya from a resident in Rani ka Bagh. Numerous other seizures were made but it seems that the action has failed to check the practice completely. The insiders in the market revealed that spurious khoya is transported to the city in private buses every morning from places as far as Batala, Beas and villages in the border belt. “It is a huge business when marriage season begins with the onset of winter season,” quipped the insider.

The trade of making spurious khoya is not too hard to learn. Commonly it is made using poor-quality skimmed milk powder. It is mixed with starch and afterwards refined or hydrogenated oil is added to fulfil fat context. No heating is required and process is much less time consuming.

District Health Officer Dr Charanjit Singh said, “We will check the shops immediately. We welcome complaints from the public and take action promptly.” He added that samples were collected and action was initiated the time such complaints were received.