In what might be viewed as a jolt to those who failed food product samples of Patanjali brand on “misinterpreted quality”, the central laboratory of Yoga guru Swami Ramdev’s Patanjali Food and Herbal Park limited has recently got NABl certification. With this certification granted by the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration laboratories in the disciplines of chemical and biological testing, Patanjali group has not only become legally entitled to do testing of its own Patanjali product samples drawn from its dozens of manufacturing units but also partially opened for other private organisations.
In an exclusive chat with The Pioneer, Managing Director of Patanjali Ayurved limited, Acharya Balkrishna said, “We received the confirmation letter of getting NABl certification for our Patanjali Food and Herbal Park limited company this week. The audit by food and drugs authority of US has also been completed. Very soon we shall be getting other quality standards for the Patanjali Yogpeeth hospital and Yog Gram as well. Patanjali will be the first group in India to get all these national quality certifications,” he averred.
The only aim has been to provide quality products to the people by a Swadeshi company, added Balkrishna.
Defining the scope of the certification, the central laboraty DGM Nemai Chandra Ghosh said, “We have been given the authority to do testing for entire group of Patanjali manufacturing industries. We shall be partially open for testing for private, governmental and non-governmental organisations too for food items, Ayurvedic products, soaps and detergents in cosmetic category.”
"We received Ayush Premium Mark certificate from qualit y control of India this year in the beginning for our over Ayurvedic medicinal 150 products. Nine manufacturing sites were successfully audited by USFDA," added corporate DGM SK Jha.
Notably, the accreditation by the national accreditation board is valid for three years after which renewals are undertaken at defined frequency intervals. Most of the Patanjali food samples which had failed earlier in state government laboratory of Rudrapur or Central Government laboratory of Pune were on account of ‘misleading’ and ‘misbranding’ issues which had nothing to do with the 'quality' standards. Explaining this, the former district food safety officer Yogendra Pandey said, “There was no problem with the quality of the products, but many products are manufactured elsewhere and their marketing is done here so the claims made on labels need to be verified. Also, the word Arogya precedes some products like mustard oil which is misleading to the public about the oil facilitating good health to people.”