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LMC drive rubs out Amul Gold's shine
(Times of India, The (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Feb. 11--LUCKNOW, India -- In a major dent to the image of dairy giant Amul, the company has been charged with selling adulterated milk in the state capital.
The Gujarat-based milk selling cooperative society now faces the bleak prospect of being sued under the Prevention of Food Adulteration (PFA) Act after the Lucknow Municipal Corporation (LMC), under its anti-adulteration drive found the percentage of fat in Amul Gold, one of prime products of the company, far below the standard level.
According to Nagar Swasthya Adhikari (NSA) Dr BBS Rathore, the milk was found to have a fat content of nearly 2 percent. This is far below the recommended percentage of 6 percent. Even in case of skimmed milk, the fat content is at least around 3 percent.
The shocking fact came to light when Pravin Verma, a food inspector at the LMC collected samples of the full fat containing milk, Amul Gold, from a prominent Amul outlet in Indiranagar.
The samples were then sent to the Varanasi-based public analyst laboratory, the only state laboratory for testing milk quality in the state.
It was to the shock of the municipal body that the results showed a fat content of only 1.6 percent, informed Verma while talking to the TOI. Verma added that a case would be filed against the company on Monday, besides conducting raids at other centres as well.
The milk, it is learnt, is packaged in Kanpur from where it is distributed in the central region of Uttar Pradesh.
Though officials of Amul consistently claim that they have very stringent measures to control and check the quality of milk being sold in the market, the results found in the case of state capital throw poor light on Amul's state of affairs and the lapses in checking the same.
When TOI contacted the Kanpur-based branch head of Amul, NS Sinha he denied having received any information from any municipal body.
He claimed that his company had appointed quality control officers for all the filling stations in central UP. He further said that the company ensured that the fat content of its products did not fall below the standard value.
Asked to comment on the anomaly that had been detected, Sinha refrained from commenting as "he was not a quality expert".
The results have now rattled the municipal body, which has often been accused of negligence in conducting proper sampling of food products.
"If that is the case with big companies like Amul, what can we expect from the local milk man selling milk," admitted a senior health official with the LMC.
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