Still smarting under the drastic dip the sweet sales suffered this Diwali, sweet shops owners of Ludhiana have decided to cross swords with the state health department. While condemning the raids conducted by the health department at their shops and storage places in the run up to Diwali, the sweet shops owners who met here today under the aegis of Ludhiana Halwai Association threatened to take the health department to the court.

The association said that besides causing huge business losses to them, the health department campaign’s had dealt a huge blow to their reputation.

The health officials however still maintain that many chemicals, dangerous for human health, were found in the adulterated sweets while the stock at a few places was found to have been kept in unhygienic conditions.

Charanjit Singh, President of Ludhiana Halwai Association, said, “Now halwais from all across the state will meet on October 28 to discuss the future strategy. The huge stock of sweets was not released in time because the sample reports got delayed and now those sweets are of no use for us.”

The halwais are now planning to take up the matter legally with the health department because they claim that besides causing monetary loss their reputation had also suffered.

Apart from this, Narinderpal Singh, director, Kays Lovely Sweets, said, “While samples of many items had passed, but because of the negative propaganda carried out by the health department our sale dipped drastically. We faced mental agony and many of the halwais did not even cook food in their houses for days together.”

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