Synthetic milk taints Diwali sweets

Diwali, the festival of lights, is an occasion when families come together, exchange sweets and other gifts.

But this year, the shortage of milk has meant that sweetmakers have doubled the prices of 'mithai' and yet been unable to ensure quality.

Shop owners say the price of milk and ghee and the sales tax on sweets, doubled from last year's four per cent, is responsible for increase in prices.

The manufacture and sale of 'synthetic' milk continues in and around the city with authorities turning a blind eye to the concoction of soap, oil, urea and water that is the dangerous milk substitute.

A Food and Drug Administration (FDA) official said: "While Delhi consumes around four million litres of milk per day, demand increases five-fold during Diwali. This, unfortunately, leaves the door open for unscrupulous milk-suppliers to churn out synthetic milk."

Even some of the preservatives being used are harmful. Ashwani Khurana, an environmentalist, said: "Though the PFA Act, 1957, stipulates that only one gram of natural colour can be used per 10 kg of sweets, synthetic colours are added to sweets liberally. Yellow and orange-coloured sweets are to be suspected. So also the attractive silver foil, which is nothing but aluminium foil used on certain sweets.

"We have launched a drive against adulterated sweets," said the PFA official. "The basic ingredient in sweets is milk and there is evidence to prove that milk entering Delhi from adjoining states is contaminated."

Tests conducted recently at PFA laboratories proved that the samples lifted from the warehouse of Delhi Milk Scheme (DMS) were of chalk powder than of skimmed powder milk.
Incidentally, no more is it the small dairies and sweetmeat sellers who are believed to be its most prolific users.

Most of the decorated sweets have non-permissible toxic colourant. Food grade colours being expensive, traders take advantage of the lackadaisical approach of the law enforcing authorities and substitute it with cheap dyes and colours.

HOT CHASE

Flouting all the rules
- The Central Vigilance Commission's recent directive to bureaucrats and police officers to turn down Diwali gifts has been ignored.

- A team from the private news channel NDTV chased cars laden with such gift parcels and found them entering bungalows allotted to senior ministers, bureaucrats and police officers in Delhi.

- A copy of the list of where the gifts were supposed to be delivered revealed that they were delivered to Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani's residence as well as scores of senior most bureaucrats, including the cabinet secretary.