Yoga Guru Baba Ramdev’s newly-launched Atta Noodles may land in a soup following the reports of bugs and insects being traced in a packet purchased by a customer from Jind in Haryana. On Friday, the Food Safety Department of Haridwar picked up samples from the manufacturing unit in State Industrial Development Corporation Uttarakhand ltd (SIDCUl). The food safety department had taken step of sampling the product at the manufacturing site after the controversy cropped up.
On Thursday, the food safety team took samples from Akash Yog Health Product situated in SIDCUl. This step followed the statement of the state health minister Surender Singh Negi during his Haridwar visit that he was concerned about the health of the people. The state government could hardly ignore the matter with insects being allegedly found in the noodles. Meanwhile, the customer from Jind had said that he would file a lawsuit against Patanjali Atta noodles.
Speaking to The Pioneer, district officer food and safety department, Mahimanand Joshi said, “Following the media reports, we have taken two samples of Patanjali Atta noodles from Akash Yog health product. This is under regular procedure of sampling and we picked products of two different batches and sent them to state testing laboratory at Rudrapur.”
Asked to comment on the response time taken for lab reports, the officer said, “Under normal conditions it takes 14 days, but due to work load, it may be delayed a bit.”
Earlier also, six products, including honey, Besan, mustard oil, salt, juice and pineapple jam, were sampled and the matter has been pending before the court since.
Acharya Bal Krishna, the close confidante of Baba Ramdev, said, “We are making our products as per quality standards and surely, the results will be alright for us. There is no issue in taking sample since the food and safety department does it under regular procedures.”