Diwali dampener: 1,000 kg spurious khoya seized from bus

Traditionally, Diwali and sweets go hand in hand. The celebrations are incomplete without a visit to the neighbourhood ‘mithai wala’. But over the years, this has changed. The thought of sweets is now clouded by news of frequent seizures of spurious khoya and other ingredients.

In this season, the Punjab Health Department has seized 700 kg khoya, 250 kg cheese, 200 kg fruit cake, 400 kg rotten eggs and coloured mithai across the state so far. Among these seizures, 1,000 kg khoya was confiscated in Amritsar from a bus that arrived from Bikaner in Rajasthan last week. The lab result confirmed the presence of starch powder, skimmed milk powder and sugar in it.

DP Reddy, a retired IAS officer and adviser to the Public Adulteration Welfare Association, said widespread adulteration was a pressing issue, affecting essential items like milk, tea, cooking oil and medicines. While offenders continued to endanger public health, nearly 50 per cent of daily food consumption is reported as adulterated at an annual rate of 22 per cent, he claimed.

Hospitals were seeing a significant increase in patients suffering from ailments linked to adulterated foods, he said, adding that, estimates suggested that 30 to 40 per cent of admissions were related to unsafe food products. Even when offenders were caught, slow judicial processes often allowed them to escape justice, he rued.

Transparency regarding FSSAI inspections and penalties, besides a review of laws to push for zero tolerance towards adulteration, could lead to visible changes, he said. Common public could report incidents of adulteration.

Amit Joshi, Joint Commissioner, Food Safety, informed that samples had been dispatched to the Food and Drugs Lab at Kharar, which normally took two weeks to declare the results. He said the department was regularly collecting samples of eatables and cases were filed in the courts of the CJM and Assistant Deputy Commissioner (General) in districts across the state, where anomalies were found.

As per law, offenders can challenge the report by approaching the laboratory concerned within 30 days. As per the report of the seized samples, the commodities are categorised as substandard and adulterated.