Adulteration continues unabated in India

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Vinod Anand

14 January, 2011

The Food and Drug Administration of the Government of India had inspected 1,36,285 establishments and raiding 14,329 of them between April and December 2010. The FDA has also registered cases against 2475 people and just 416 have been punished.

ADULTERATION GOES on unabated in India. It is also so in other countries. In fact, it is a crime, which must be dealt with strictly. Adulteration is basically linked with edible items like milk, oil, flour, spices, ice cream, sweets, salt, sugar and bottled water that are mixed with chemicals which are highly dangerous for the human system.

These adulterated items don’t look like adulterated, but they are adulterated other wise. For example, milk is mixed with urea and detergents; sugar is mixed with sand, Aregmone Mexicana with mustard oil, sawdust with tea and coffee, ghee with vanaspati, arhar with cheap kesar, and so on. The Food and Drug Administration of the Government of India has inspected 1,36,285 establishments and raiding 14,329 of them between April and December 2010.

The FDA has also registered cases against 2475 people and just 416 have been punished. But the condition of the laboratories that tests these products is bad. Only 50 per cent of the samples are tested. The basic reason of adulteration, as everyone knows, is to maximise profits at the cost of health of a large majority of people, who consume these products. How can a consumer find out whether the product is adulterated or not? The best way, according to me, is to buy the stuff from a reliable and known shop. There is no other way to provide a safeguard. It should be mentioned that Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab are the leading states in food adulteration and as such no state is immune to this menace.

The government should punish the concerned firms in a deterrent way so that no one can get involved in this heinous crime. A law must be enacted and enforced in our country to deal with adulterators stringently.