Health Dept destroys 40 quintals of spurious jaggery in Hoshiarpur

Hoshiarpur, October 18

A food safety, led by District Health Officer Dr Lakhvir Singh, destroyed about 40 quintals of spurious jaggery and 25 quintals of substandard sugar here today.

Earlier, an appeal was made by District Health Officer to the jaggery producers, who were making substandard product, that until the sugarcane crop ripens and the sweetness was sufficient and the sugarcane juice becomes suitable for making jaggery, they should not make jaggery.

He came to know that despite this some migrant labourers were making poor quality jaggery by adding low quality sugar. Acting on this, four expellers were checked on Phagwara Road and jaggery was found being prepared by adding poor quality sugar there.

About 40 quintals of such spurious jaggery and 25 quintals of substandard sugar have been destroyed. These expellers have been closed till further orders.

District Health Officer Dr Lakhveer Singh said that when four expellers running on Hoshiapur-Phagwara Road were examined, jaggery was found being prepared by mixing large quantities of inedible sugar in all of them.

Taking strict action, the recovered substandard sugar was destroyed by mixing into soil and the substandard jaggery was kept in a cauldron with boiling juice and destroyed by adding a huge amount of ash into it so that no one would fall ill by eating this jaggery. He ordered all the jaggery producers of the district that until the sugarcane is ripe and the juice becomes suitable for making jaggery, no producer will make jaggery and if anyone is caught making jaggery by adding sugar, then strict action will be taken against him as per rules.

On the occasion, Food Safety Officers Munish Kumar, Ram Lubhya, Naresh Kumar and Gurvinder Shane from the media wing were also present with him. Dr Lakhvir said that during investigation it was also found that none of the jaggery manufacturers had a food safety license. He appealed to all the jaggery producers to obtain food safety license before starting the expeller, otherwise strict action would be taken.