By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 29 Jun: A paneer (Cottage cheese) manufacturing factory located in Raiwala (district Dehradun) was raided today morning by officials from Food Safety Department (FDA) Dehradun and FDA Tehri Garhwal. This paneer manufacturing plant is located in Haripur under Raiwala Area of Dehradun district and the FDA had received some inputs from the informers that the factory was manufacturing synthetic paneer from various materials. Based on this input, this unit was raided early this morning at 6 am.
During the raid, many items allegedly used for preparation of synthetic paneer were recovered by the officials and samples of the alleged synthetic paneer were collected for testing. The items seized from the factory included 2 drums of arrowroot weighing around 85 kilograms, 2 cans of acetic acid weighing about 60 kg and 10 litres of palm oil besides already prepared paneer. According to the FDA team, under the Food Safety Standards Act 2006, using such suspicious material in the manufacturing of dairy products is a gross violation of the Food Safety Standards Act.
In view of this fact, the FDA team destroyed the suspicious materials recovered from the spot in presence of the owner of this factory, who allegedly has admitted his “mistake” of using banned items for manufacturing of synthetic paneer. Apart from this, a few samples of the “synthetic” paneer already made were also recovered. In addition, 1 sample of palm oil, 1 sample of arrowroot and 1 sample of acetic acid recovered from the spot were collected. In all, 5 samples have been sent to the laboratory for testing. The FDA officers claimed that further legal action will be taken on the basis of the investigation report, when it is received. According to the FDA team, the owner of the Paneer plant has been strictly warned and instructed not to manufacture food items like Paneer in his institute until the investigation report comes. Though, the question arises, why the owner of the factory has not been arrested as yet.
FDA’s Garhwal Division in charge RS Rawat, Designated Officer Dehradun PC Joshi, MN Joshi, Ramesh Singh, Dilip Jain, Balwant Singh Chauhan and Sanjay Negi from FDA Vigilance along with Yogendra Negi were present during the raid and inspection of the factory.
