Government takes tough stand on adulteration of milk

Shri Parshottam Rupala and Shri Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Union Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare presided the meeting on 21.12.2017 to discuss the issue of adulteration of milk and milk products with the State Cooperative Milk Federations, National Dairy Development Board (NDDB), Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) and State Food Safety Department representatives. MOSs advised the stakeholders to identify the unscrupulous agents who indulge in adulteration of milk as their business. Directions have been issued by Secretary (ADF) to all Chief Secretaries and Food Commissioners of States/UTs to conduct 500 random sampling of milk every month at village level for detecting adulteration particularly of edible oil, sucrose and detergents. This drive will be started immediately and 50,000 samples will be taken countrywide. FSAAI has been advised to follow up on this. States have also been advised to install milk Adulteration testing equipments at village level for detection of adulteration by various adulterants. Assistance for this will be provided by DADF under the National Programme for Dairy Development (NPDD). Rs.100 crores have been set apart for this. ICAR was directed to enable quick testing methods for testing chemicals which are not detected by the existing testing machines. Uttar Pradesh is being assisted to install 390 milk adulteration testing equipments in 2017-18 at village/District level. Other States are also being encouraged like Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu etc. The FSAAI has also been directed to develop standards for Honey testing as fructose adulteration malpractice is rampant. NDDB is setting up a National Honey Testing Laboratory for the purpose with Central Government assistance.

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