Seizing poor quality edible oil being sold under fake brands in the city, the health department raided a wholesale store at Sham Nagar and sealed 70,000 litres of edible oil on Saturday.

The edible oil was reported to be spurious and adulterated, and was also branded fraudulently. The health team sealed all the stock available in the store including 60,000 litres of palmolein oil, 7900 litres of mustard oil and 450 litres of soya bean oil. Mustard oil was also found stored in three tanks in unhygienic condition, besides stored in hundreds of small tin containers and dozens of drums.

The store owner, Surinder Goel alias Hans Raj Vidya Sagar, did not possess any licence and had been selling edible oil under fake label of big brands like Sunlight, Mahesh, Super Gold, Top Star, Parkash, said civil surgeon Dr Maninderjit Singh, who headed the team.

District Health officer Dr US Sooch said: “Edible oil of different types was stored in the shop and we found it to be of very poor quality. Besides, the labels did not contain dates of manufacturing or expiry.” Labelling machines were also found at the store, besides three tanks that were used for filtering.

The team found containers labelled with Sunlight Soya bean oil over the labels of Raag Gold Palmolein Oil, which is manufactured by Adani Wilmar Limited, of which the owner claimed to be a registered dealer.

Amit Kumar Gupta, area sales manager for Adani Wilmar, confirmed that the dealer was registered with them and said,” We supply our material to the dealer having units under two names—- Surinder Goel & Sons and Hans Raj Vidya Sagar.” He added that while the company supplied packaged and sealed items to Goel, Vidya Sagar procured loose edible oil in tankers from them.

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