Ahead of the festival season as a precautionary measure against sale of substandard sweets, Food Safety teams of Punjab have been put on high alert, state government officials said on Saturday.
The food safety teams have been directed to maintain constant vigil on the bulk sale and purchase of milk and milk products, especially Khoya, besides the routine inspections, KS Pannu, Commissioner Food Safety Punjab, said.
“It is general impression that substandard khoya procured at cheaper rates from other states is stored ahead of the festival season in the cold stores by the sweets manufacturers, so we are constantly checking the cold stores across the State and are also putting the owners on guard against storing spurious items’’, Pannu said in a statement.
Giving details of the inspections, he said that cold stores in Kapurthala, Bathinda, Hoshiarpur, Jalandhar, Sangrur, Barnala, Patiala, Sri Mukatsar, Fazilka, Amloh, Faridkot, Kotakpura and Pathankot have been inspected.
The statement said that Food Safety Wing Pathankot in a raid at Aman Cold Store found about 1.5 quintal of foul smelling khoya with storage dating back to over a year. It is linked with a sweets shop owner in Shahpur Chowk, Pathankot. The team took the samples and destroyed the khoya, not fit for human consumption. In the same premises, about 3.72 Quintals of fat spread was found which is sold as butter and it was linked with Balaji Enterprises. Sample of fat spread has been taken and whole of the stock has been seized.
Similarly, two bread manufacturing units in Amritsar were inspected and sealed due to poor hygiene of premises as well as for being run in residential areas without FSSAI license. Very low quality ghee, maida and cherry and other ingredients were being used in processing.
A Soda Manufacturing unit has also been sealed in Fatehgarh Colony, Anngarh, Amritsar for being run without mandatory license. An ill legal Water packing unit at Shri Goindwal Sahib, Tarntaran was also sealed on same account.
At other places over ripened fruits and adulterated milk were found and destroyed after due sampling.
Pannu said that “extensive checking and the crackdown on the adulterators would continue in full swing to keep the substandard food articles at bay.”