हिंदी
Department of Food & Drugs Administration Haryana conducted massive drives and seized goods worth Rs. 1,62,94,120 in last six months
Chandigarh, February 4– Taking stringent measures to keep a check on spurious food articles, the Department of Food & Drugs Administration, Haryana, has conducted massive drives and has seized goods worth Rs. 1,62,94,120 in last six months.
The Department had recently constituted a four member team on the directions of the Health Minister, Mr. Anil Vij for this purpose. Its members include one Designated Officer and three Food Safety Officers. The team is conducting special raids in various districts of Haryana regularly to keep a tab on adulteration in ghee, edible oil, milk, milk products and other food articles. Furthermore, in these raids conducted around 28 of the seized samples were found to be “unsafe.”
On the legal action that can be initiated, he said that prosecution is being launched against the delinquent Food Business Operator for 28 unsafe samples before the court and in remaining 143 samples, found to be substandard and misbranded, cases will be filed before the Adjudicating Officers as per the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006.
Sharing more information in this regard, Additional Chief Secretary, Health, Rajeev Arora said that maintaining food standards is of utmost importance as it ensures good health of the people of the state. Elaborating on it he said that special raids are being conducted to check the menace of spurious ghee, milk products, mustard oil, spices and tea leaves. He further added that it was for the first time that the Department was carrying out such massive drives and is on its toes to wipe out food adulteration from the state.
Divulging more details Arora said that the state government has been carrying out raids across the state and have recently seized 8,400 litres of ghee worth Rs 42 lakh from Karnal, 11,483 litres of desi ghee worth Rs 57,41,500, 15 litres of pure ghee and 17,000 litres of vanaspati worth Rs 42,50,000 from Hisar. On the raids conducted earlier this year, Mr. Arora shared that 98 litres of adulterated “Shree Madur Rattan Desi Ghee”, 642 litres of adulterated “Haryana Fresh Agmark Desi Ghee”, 3,276 litres of “Kedar Agmark Blended Vegetable Oil” and 1,145 litres of “Haryana Fresh Agmark Desi Ghee and Shree Gobind Agmark Desi Ghee” worth Rs 4.58 lakhs were seized from Ambala. Also,19,645 litres of adulterated ghee, butter, subham ghee, Abhinandan Ghee, Cream, Palmolive Oil & Milk Powder worth Rs 12,97,820 were seized from Kurukshetra and 1,250 litres of ghee, butter, edible oil worth Rs 3,46,800 was seized from Karnal.
Commissioner, Food & Drugs Administration, Lalit Siwach said that during the recent raids 500 samples were seized from various parts of Haryana. Of these 500 samples, 171 samples were not upto the Food Safety and Standards and were declared non-confirming to standards as per FSS (Food Safety and Standards) Act, 2006. According to the laboratory report of the 171 samples which were found to be adulterated the food analyst found that 28 samples were unsafe, 99 substandard and 44 misbranded.
