The Uttar Pradesh government on Saturday issued a total statewide ban on analogue dairy products including paneer, ghee and khoya. Earlier officials had proposed restrictions and enforcement actions via the Food Safety and Drug Administration (FSDA) against mislabeled sales in hotels and restaurants. Similar bans on analogue items (like paneer, butter, and ghee made from vegetable fats) have been enacted in states like Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Chhattisgarh under FSSAI misbranding guidelines.
What Food Safety and Standards Act says about milk products?
The Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, clearly states that milk and milk products must be manufactured and sold in their original form. Moreover, the order also stated that inspections of milk and milk products in several districts of Uttar Pradesh revealed that the samples were adulterated with various substances.
In many districts, milk and milk products were adulterated with refined oils and fats, soybeans and their products, talcum powder, detergents, titanium dioxide, liquid glucose, hydrogen peroxide, various neutralisers, and other substances.
Consequently, milk and milk products are being manufactured with such adulteration, which is harmful to health. Therefore, banning these substances is a major responsibility of the Food Safety Commissioner.
What was said in the order?
If the presence of other fat and harmful chemicals/adulterants is found in any dairy and dairy product manufacturing/processing unit, in the concerned premises or in any premises under the authority of the concerned firm/firm owner, all the milk products found in the manufacturing unit will be seized and destroyed.
In view of public health, construction work at such establishment will be stopped with immediate effect by issuing emergency prohibition order under Section 34 of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006.
If chemicals harmful to public health are found being used in an organised manner, an FIR will be registered against the concerned person under relevant sections of BNS.
A state-wide ban will be imposed on the sale of the concerned brand.
The food license/registration of such establishment will be immediately suspended under Regulation 2.1.8(4) of the Food Safety and Standards (Licensing and Registration of Food Businesses) Regulations, 2011.
If harmful chemicals and foreign fats are confirmed in milk and milk products manufactured outside the state, a state-wide ban will be imposed on the sale of the concerned brand.