A day after huge quantities of spurious milk and milk products were seized in Patiala, Moga and Sangrur, Punjab government’s Food Safety team on Friday continued to seize huge amount of spurious products with seizure of over three quintals of paneer (cheese) in Ludhiana.

This was after working on a tip off, Food Safety Team of Ludhiana conducted a raid at a Paneer manufacturing unit in an interior village of Samrala. Huge cache of spurious milk and milk products(M and MP) were seized.

Giving details, Commissioner, Food and Drugs Administration (FDA), KS Pannu said around 9:30 p.m., an information was received that huge quantity of spurious paneer was being prepared in a manufacturing unit in Samrala and it was to be dispatched to market at the daybreak. A raid was conducted at the said premises at around 10 p.m.

The entire operation lasted for about four hours and three quintals of paneer, 90 litres of palm oil, five quintals of ghee, 39 empty Palm oil tins of 15 litres each, five sealed palm oil tins of 15 litre capacity each and 13 bags of 25 kg capacity of Verka skimmed milk powder and 4 bags of 25 kilogram each of other skimmed milk powder.

Similarly, a raid was conducted in the early morning hours in Jalandhar. A large amount of curd (approximately two quintals ) and spurious desi ghee to the tune of eight quintals was found. In Rajpura, Patiala district a vehicle carrying about 160 kilogram of paneer coming from Narwana, in Jind district of Haryana was intercepted by the food safety team.

The vehicle was bound for Satgur Dairy in Teacher’s Colony in Rajpura. The owner of paneer was Ram Mehar from Narwana who on enquiry disclosed that he sold spurious paneer at Rs 160 /kg to the said dairy in Rajpura. Two samples of paneer were taken and the remaining stock was destroyed on the spot.

It is the second consecutive big seizure by food safety teams who on Thursday had unearthed huge quantities of spurious M and MP seized in Patiala and Moga.

Earlier in the week, surprise checks were conducted at a 1000 odd places including chilling centres, creameries, milk establishments in remote areas, interception of tankers by special nakas and at toll barriers, unearthing huge quantities of M and MP. Many a cases of unhygienic preparation, usage of acids and colouring agents forbidden were detected.