Pb Food Safety Teams conducts raids in a number of districts, huge quantity of spurious milk seized

Huge quantities of spurious milk, milk products and other food items were seized following raids conducted by Food Safety Teams at a number of places in Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Mansa and Patiala districts of Punjab, officials said today.

Following a tip-off, a raid was conducted at a cheese manufacturing unit in Samrala village of Ludhiana district yesterday, and a huge quantity of spurious milk and milk products were seized, K S Pannu, Commissioner, Food and Drugs Administration, Punjab said here.

"When the Food Safety Team reached there, the premises of the house (from where the unit was being run) was locked from outside but the workers were working inside. With the support of locals the lock was opened.

"The entire operation lasted for about four hours. Apart from spurious milk and milk products 90 litres of palm oil, five quintal of ghee, 13 bags of 25 kg capacity of skimmed milk powder and other items were seized," the officer was quoted as saying in a release.

In another raid which was conducted in the early this morning in Jalandhar, nearly 200 kg curd and 800 kg spurious ghee was seized, Pannu said, adding similar inspections were also carried out at Mansa and Rajpura, where samples of milk and milk products were collected.

"All the samples have been sent for lab analysis," he said.