Taking a cue from the Tirupati Balaji Prasadam adulteration scam, the Uttarakhand government has launched a statewide drive to monitor the quality of ghee and butter sold in the state.

Following an order from Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, the State Food and Drugs Department directed all its district officials to ensure that ghee and butter sold across the state meet the standards of the department.

The state Food Safety and Drugs Administration ordered its district chapters to launch a drive for surveillance of the ghee and butter materials, manufactured, stored, and sold in Uttarakhand.

“You are directed to carry out surveillance and legal sampling of butter and ghee brands manufactured, stored, and sold in Uttarakhand for an effective monitoring of the traders engaged in the business,” reads the letter sent by the department to its district units.

According to the officials, the drive is being conducted mainly given adulteration scams in Tirupati Balaji laddoo prasadam as ghee and butter are the only focus products.

Acting on the department’s order, food safety and drugs officials launched a statewide drive for the collection of samples of the ghee and butter in the state. They informed us that around 70-80 samples of ghee were collected in the last two days of the drive and sent to the forensic lab for further examination.

“An exhaustive drive has been launched across the state to collect the samples of all ghee and butter brands being sold in the Himalayan state after the chief minister expressed his wish. As the festive season is ahead, the quality of these products along with other items must be maintained by the traders,” said Dr Rajesh Kumar secretary, Health, Uttarakhand.

“Samples of ghee and butter are being collected from every shop whereever these products are sold. Sampling of every brand of these products as well as loose items will be done in the next few days. However, we want the lab report of the samples should come to us within the stipulated days as mentioned in the law. Only then we will succeed in our endeavour,” said Ramesh Singh, senior food safety officer in Dehradun.

Meanwhile, officials in the department expressed their helplessness in expediting the drive as desired. They said a lack of staff, resources, and technical support has kept the pace of sampling low. They said the sample drive could have gone more vigorous had there been adequate resources and staff.