The state government has sounded alert following reports of spurious milk products being sold in the market.
To unravel the truth, The Tribune team ordered paneer and khoya in different districts and found that shopkeepers were willing to supply 100 kg paneer within five hours. The adulterated milk products are largely supplied from Meerut, Saharanpur and Muzaffarnagar of Uttar Pradesh.
In Ludhiana and Ferozepur, several shopkeepers were ready to provide 400 kg of khoya in a couple of hours.
In Patiala, a shopowner said paneer could be prepared within four hours if the order was above 200 kg. “I have ample milk supply from different dairies and you can collect your order in four hours. However, I will not give you a bill for the same,” he said.
Sources within the Health Department confirmed that the dairy products were being smuggled into Punjab from other states.
“Small and prominent sweet shops have no other option than to buy spurious milk products, given the huge demand,” they said, adding that synthetic paneer and khoya were available at half price.
Health Minister Dr Balbir Singh admitted that he had specific information about spurious milk products.
“The smuggling of synthetic milk products happens regularly. Following some leads, I have directed four departments to confiscate and take strict action against erring traders,” the minister said. “Two days ago, spurious milk products were unloaded in Nabha. Before our teams could confiscate the material, they managed to escape,” he said.
Recently, the police and the Health Department had busted a racket wherein paneer was prepared by mixing refined oil, detergent, urea and treated with acid.
Even officials of the Health Department are under lens for allegedly accepting bribe to “let such material sell at shops”. Around 15 per cent food, sweets and bakery samples taken in the past three months have failed the quality test.
According to data compiled by the Food Safety Wing of the Food and Drug Administration, 1,724 samples of food items were collected between July and September. Of these, 250 were found substandard.
Source : The Tribune Nov 7th 2023