The Supreme Court has admitted a PIL (Writ Petition (Civil) No.
159/2012) filed by Swami Achyutanand Tirth on behalf of Swami Bhumanand
Dharmarth Chikitsalaya and Research Institute of Haridwar and issued
notices to the central government and the state governments of Delhi,
Haryana, Rajastan, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand about formulating a
comprehensive policy on the production, supply and sale of healthy,
hygienic and natural milk.
The PIL follows the shocking revelations of The National Survey
on Milk Adulteration 2011 conducted by the Food Safety and Standards
Authority of India to ascertain the quality of milk and identify
different type of milk adulteration throughout the country. The survey
tested nearly 1800 milk samples from all over the country to see if they
conformed to FSSA standards. The survey found that an astonishingly
high percentage (68%) of the samples failed the test. The percentages of
failed test samples in various states were: Bihar (100%), Chhattisgarh
(100%), Daman and Diu (100%), Jharkhand (100%), Orissa (100%), West
Bengal (100%), Mizoram (100%), Manipur (96%), Meghalaya (96%), Tripura
(92%), Gujarat (89%), Sikkim (89%), Uttrakhand (88%), Uttar Pradesh
(88%), Nagaland (86%), Jammu & Kashmir (83%), Punjab (81%),
Rajasthan (76%) Delhi (70%), Haryana (70%), Arunachal Pradesh (68%),
Maharashtra (65%), Himachal Pradesh (59%), Dadra and Nagar Haveli (58%),
Assam (55%), Chandigarh (48%), Madhya Pradesh (48%), Kerala (28%),
Karnataka (22%), Tamil Nadu (12%), Andhra Pradesh (6.7%), Goa 0%) and
Puducherry (0%).
It is interesting to note that in seven states, Bihar,
Chhattisgarh, Daman and Diu, Jharkhand, Orissa, West Bengal and Mizoram,
none of the samples passed the test. In Gujrat, the home of the white
revolution, the failure rate is quite high (89%). The level of milk
adulteration in the south is much less than in the rest of the country.
If you want pure milk, you should go to Goa or Puducherry, where all the
samples passed the test. In Karnataka, 22% of the samples (11 out of
51) failed the test.
One normally assumes that milk sold in packets is safe. But this
is not the case. Nearly one third of the failed samples came in
packets.
The FSSA survey proved the common sense guess that adding water
to milk was the common form of adulteration. What was shocking was that
one in every 12 samples tested contained detergents. It is well-known
that unscrupulous elements make cheap synthetic milk by mixing urea,
caustic soda, oil and detergent. Such "milk" is obviously quite harmful
to human health.
B.V. Shenoy, Mysore Grahakara Parishat