Majority of the sweets samples taken by the District Health Department from Ludhiana district have been declared failed by the public health laboratory, Chandigarh.

Disclosing this, Maninderjit Singh, Chief Medical Officer Ludhiana, said, “We started our campaign on September 26 and took 107 samples of different sweets and edible oils and milk. The maximum samples were taken in Ludhiana district in the state and maximum have been declared failed by the laboratory. We took 47 samples of seized material. Out of these, we have received results of 45 on telephone. And shockingly, 31 samples out of 45 failed and only 14 could fulfill the parameters of required quality.”

The CMO said that the result of two seized samples was still awaited. He said, “There are about 600 drums of sweets lying at Kisan cold store and owners of these are yet to turn up. If the owners did not come, we will seize these after taking legal opinion.”

He said that he had directed all the senior medical officers of the district to be vigilant during the festival of Diwali and take appropriate action whenever they get any genuine complaint of spurious khoya sweets or stale sweets. They can also check at their own and take required action.

It needs to be mentioned here that the Health Department took samples from prominent sweetmeat makers of the city on October 14 and results of these are yet to come. It was observed that sale of these sweets shops remained unaffected.

... contd.