Patiala: Milk products of illegal chilling centre found unsafe for consumption

PATIALA: In what could be termed as shocking is the recent report of food sampling of the milk and milk products being produced at a chilling center in Patiala. The food samples collected by the health department from a Milk Chilling Centre situated at Devigarh road are found to be unsafe for human consumption. Some of the products were declared substandard and adulterated.

However the report had found "foreign fat" (other than milk fat) in the milk samples . The same chilling center was sealed last year by the health department but the owner had allegedly managed to start his center without getting any license which is must for operations. On August 16 this year the Rajpura police nabbed two accused along with a milk van and recovered milk and milk-products that were suspiciously spurious in nature. The health teams were called by the police and the very next day, on August 17, the health department conducted raid over the chilling centre and found it operating however the accused managed to escape.

The health authorities provided samples of Milk, Butter, Desi Ghee, two Paneer, Skimmed Milk Powder, Plastic Soda, and Vinegar for testing. The samples of the Milk, Butter, and Desi Ghee were found substandard while Caustic Soda and Vinegar were found to be ‘Adulterated. The sample of the Skimmed Milk Powder has met the quality standard and was found safe while the report of the Desi Ghee was awaited.

The police identified the centre "Singla Milk Chilling centre" at Devigarh road. The police revealed that cheese (paneer) was declared ‘unfit for human consumption’ by the state Food testing laboratory in Kharar.

The police revealed that the accused were supplying these unsafe spurious products in Rajpura, Baltana, Ludhiana, Panchkula, Karnal, Kurukshetra, Shahbad, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh. The police claimed that the accused have been identified as Kulwant Singh, Hardial Singh, Anil Singla, Satish Singla, and Honey Singla and were out of police reach but will be nabbed soon.

The same Milk Centre was sealed on August 16, last year, after Patiala Police raided and found a huge amount of spurious Milk and Milk Products.

Patiala district health officer (DHO), Satinder Singh, said that the report had found "foreign fat" in the samples of Paneer instead of milk fat and thus it was totally unsafe for human consumption. He said that the two milk samples, which were found substandard, had only 2.5 percent Milk fat while the prescribed figure was 4.5 percent.

Patiala Civil Surgeon Dr. Harish Malhotra said that legal action would be taken against the owner of the chilling center as per Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006."