KARACHI, Sept 20: A federal government’s quality control organisation has declared that sugar produced by 18 mills does not meet the standards and contains impurities that could pose a threat to human health.

According to sources, though the sugar samples did not meet the recognised standards, the federal government organisation has not taken any punitive action against the sugar mills producing sub-standard sugar as it was not yet declared a compulsory item. According to the sources, the samples were collected and tested by the Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority and substances found in the sugar that were in non-conformity of the standards included sulphur dioxide, sulphated ash, moisture, etc, which, medical practitioners said, could affect asthmatic patients, etc.

The sources said that 10 of the 18 sugar mills, product of which did not meet the standards, were situated in Sindh and the eight others in Punjab.

The Sindh-based sugar mills were: Badin Sugar Mills (OMS 205), Ansari Sugar Mills (OMS 204), Ansari Sugar Mills (OMS 246); Dewan Sugar Mills (OMS 203); Sindh Abadgar Sugar Mills, Digri Sugar Mills, Tharparkar Sugar Mills, Sakrand Sugar Mills, Matyari Sugar Mills and Habib Sugar Mills. The Punjab-based sugar mills were: Kamalia Sugar Mills, Huda Sugar Mills, Shakar Gang Sugar Mills, Madina Sugar Mills, Noon Sugar Mills, Chaudhry Sugar Mills, Ittefaq Sugar Mills and Ramazan Sugar Mills.

While the city government’s regulation and quality control (health) department officials, who monitor adulteration, remain reluctant to give the names of the brands or even the companies, products of which do not meet the standards prescribed by the Pure Food Laws, the officials of the Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority, which comes under the federal science and technology ministry, not only provide information easily but also the list of the companies, samples of which had “failed”, along with their names and relevant information, has been posted on its webpage to create public awareness.

Responding to Dawn’s queries, the PSQCA’s confirmatory assessment director, Tahir H. Khan, said the authority’s teams carried out random checking and took samples from the market regularly and then these samples were tested at the authority’s laboratories. If the samples failed to meet the prescribed standards, prosecution started in courts and the defaulting companies could be sentenced to six months of prison term or fined up to Rs50,000.

He said the authority could initiate prosecution only for the commodities that had been declared compulsory by the government. He said though many samples of sugar, produced by different mills of Sindh and Punjab, had “failed” to meet the prescribed standards, no action had been taken against the mills involved as the commodity, sugar in this case, had not yet been declared as a compulsory one.

The sources said the authority had initiated the process to get sugar declared as a compulsory commodity, but the government bowing to pressure exerted by the industrialists only declared the “sugar bag” as a compulsory commodity while sugar itself was not declared as such.The PSQCA official, however, said that sugar was consumed by everybody and was an integral part of the diet, the authority’s teams during their regular sample taking drives had collected the samples and many of them were not in conformity with the prescribed standards. So while the authority could not take any action against these mills which were producing sub-standard sugar, the information with the names of these sugar mills, had been posted on the authority’s website to create awareness among the masses so that they made an informed decision whether to buy the commodity produced by these mills.