Adding to the unabated haul of spurious milk and milk products in Punjab is soya paneer — a shocking new entrant to the seizure of spurious products.
Continuing with the state-wide raids, the food safety teams seized over 1000 litres of milk containing hydrogen peroxide at ludhiana, more than 300 kg spurious paneer at Bathinda and 1200 litre milk at Patiala. Besides, 47 kg cooking medium, being sold under the garb of desi ghee, was also seized at Abohar.
In a raid by ludhiana Food Safety Team, two wholesale paneer sellers were found selling paneer at Rs 200 per kg and sealed soya paneer without any date of manufacture or expiry. The batch number and the address of the manufacturer were also missing on the packets of soya paneer, said the government spokesperson.
Spokesperson further said that Sardar Paneer House was also found selling soya champ coming from Delhi. Samples were taken and the entire stock comprising of 70 kg of paneer, 40 packets each of half kg of soya paneer and 20 kg soya champ was seized.
ludhiana food safety team also intercepted a vehicle coming from Sangrur having 1050 litres of milk, and the milk vendor admitted having added hydrogen peroxide to it.
In a raid conducted early morning at around 2:15 am at Bathinda’s Garg Chilling Center, 315 kg of suspected paneer and 150 kg of skimmed milk powder was seized by the food safety team. Samples of Paneer, dahi, skimmed milk powder and milk were taken and sent for analysis.
Patiala team, along with dairy development team and the police, at 8 am raided GSK Milk Chilling Centre at Dhindsa Kharaud village in Patiala from where 1200 litres of milk along with three bags of suspected material without any label, number or date of manufacture or expiry was found.
“One five-kg bag of zmax glucose powder, five empty bags of glucose powder and six empty tins of refined oil were also found on the spot. As many as 32 bottles of five litre each of chemical without any label and nine such empty bottles were also spotted. Samples of milk, glucose powder and suspected adulterants were taken, and the chemicals and material suspected to be used as adulterant were taken into custody by the police,” said the spokesperson.
In Fazilka, 80 packets weighing 200 gms each, 32 packets of 500 gms each and 15 packets of one kg each (total 47 kg) of cooking medium sold in the garb of desi ghee were seized from Himmat pura village on Punjab-Rajasthan border in Abhor tehsil of district Fazilka. Samples of cooking medium were taken for analysis and the stock was seized.