LAHORE, Jan 25: Adulteration has become an integral part of the food business despite the existence of comprehensive laws and administrative mechanism for curbing the menace. The culprits allegedly operate in connivance with the enforcement personnel and under the patronage of district and town council members.

The average percentage of adulteration in the provincial metropolis has fluctuated between 40 and 60 per cent of the collected food samples ever since independence despite an annual expenditure of Rs2 million on over a dozen food inspectors and the food laboratory.

The inspectors have been collecting an average of 1,100 to 1,200 samples every month for the past two decades. Of these, 500 to 600 samples are declared as adulterated or substandard after analysis at the laboratory.

District and Town Council members, who are Nazimeen and Naib Nazimeen of union councils, are supposed to form the first line of defence against adulteration. However, they use their influence on food inspectors and the laboratory staff to ensure that collected samples are either not sent for analysis at all or are declared in accordance with standard specifications if examined. They also exert their influence to ensure that traders or manufacturers whose samples are declared adulterated are let off the hook with minimum fines.

Connivance of food inspectors with adulterators was laid bare last month when a raid was conducted under the supervision of the vice-chairman of district council’s sub-committee for health, Mian Fayyaz Ahmed, at Multan Road last month. To escape sampling, some milk-sellers presented cards sold to them by a man, who told the health committee vice-chairman that food inspectors received half his sale proceeds and did not take samples from milk-sellers who had the cards in their possession. An inquiry has been ordered in the matter.

Profit is the underlying motive in all kinds of adulteration of costlier merchandise with the cheaper. Adulterators mix inferior and superior quality stuff of the same kind or even different kinds for making easy money. Colour is also used to camouflage the stuff used for adulteration.

Milk and milk products are the most commonly adulterated foodstuff available in the market. Milkmen mix starch known as Sanghara powder in milk to ensure that it remains thick after extraction of cream and addition of water.

Standardised milk in tetrapak with 3.5 per cent fat is being marketed as pure milk, which contains nine per cent fat. The consumers are thus being hoodwinked without any let or hindrance.

Gram flour and turmeric powder are adulterated with coloured powder of cheap broken rice and maize flour for increasing the profit margin. Inferior quality pulses are mixed with those of superior quality. Old red chillies are ground with new ones. White cumin seeds are dipped in water, dried in the shade and made to look like the costlier black cumin seeds. The simple process changes the colour of the seeds, which, however, do not have the fragrance of the naturally black cumins.

Flour-mill owners maximise their profits by over-extracting fine and increasing moisture that helps increase the weight of flour. Cooking oil and vegetable ghee manufacturers blend cheaper oils with the costlier while chewing gum manufacturers add starch to the gum base for increasing the volume of their product.

A majority of the adulterators escape accountability either by preventing the sampling of their merchandise or making the inspectors collect samples of only that stuff which conforms to the provisions of the pure-food law. The shrewd ones have developed contacts with the food laboratory staff and get the merchandise declared in conformity with the specified standards whenever samples are sent for analysis. Those found guilty of food adulteration despite the availability of the two escape channels have the solace of getting off the hook after payment of a moderate fine and a confinement that lasts till the rising of the court.

Different amounts of fine and terms of imprisonment have been prescribed in the Pure Food Ordinance for those committing the offence for the first, second and third time. Manufacturers are to be treated as those committing the offence for the third time every time their merchandise is found adulterated or not conforming to the prescribed specifications, and handed the maximum punishment — seven years of rigorous imprisonment. However, food magistrates generally impose a fine of a few thousand rupees on everyone whose merchandise is not found in conformity with the prescribed standards and sentence him till the rising of the court. No woman has ever been booked or convicted for food adulteration in the provincial metropolis.

Only one manufacturer has been awarded the prescribed maximum punishment since the creation of the food squad in the provincial metropolis in the 70s. Even he did not serve the prescribed term of imprisonment. The manufacturers and those committing the offence for the second or third time escape the prescribed punishment because the necessary information is not recorded in chargesheets submitted in the courts. The fines of Rs1,030, Rs5,030 and Rs10,030, prescribed for committing the offence for the first, second and third time, seem negligible as compared to the profit that a manufacturer is able to make by marketing sub-standard or adulterated foodstuff. — Mohammad Asghar