Mohali, August 2
The otherwise quiet office of the Punjab Dairy Development Board in Chandigarh was abuzz with activity throughout the day with hundreds of Tribune readers calling from Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh to know how they could get milk tested for adulteration. The Tribune had carried a report today that the milk being supplied by milkmen to households could be highly adulterated containing bacterial water and chemicals.
The Director of the Board Mr Anil Kaura, today authorised his team of deputy directors posted across the state to conduct adulteration tests of milk samples being provided by all those who contacted them. “We have received a tremendous response from Punjab and Haryana. Chandigarh, Mohali and Panchkula residents came to our office with milk samples for testing.
For outside Chandigarh, our deputy directors would be collecting samples from the caller’s household, test it and report the result to the consumer and also to my office,” said Mr Kaura.
Tests were conducted on the milk samples received in the Director’s office today. “Most of these were adulterated with water and one was a mixture of edible cream and water,” said Mr Kaura adding that the easiest way to “produce” milk was to add water to edible cream and sell it as milk. “There is a lot of cream on top of such milk. So the consumer thinks it is very good quality milk. But since it is just water mixed with cream there is no SNF (solid not fat) content. There is no protein or other beneficial solids. Moreover the water added could contain a lot of bacteria,” he said.
