OMG! Nation drinks unsafe milk

68% milk contains ‘very hazardous’ caustic soda, white paint: Govt

New Delhi: Over 68 per cent of milk in the country does not conform to the standards laid down by the food regulator and the most common adulterant found in it is detergent, caustic soda, glucose, white paint and refined oil considered "very hazardous" which could cause serious ailments, the Lok Sabha was informed on Wednesday.

Science and Technology Minister Harsh Vardhan said during Question Hour that a new scanner has been developed which can detect adulteration in milk in 40 seconds and can even pinpoint the adulterant.Earlier, for every type of adulteration, a separate chemical test was required. But now a single scanner can do the job, he said.

There were murmurs among members when the minister suggested that these scanners could be purchased by MPs through their constituency funds. Though the scanners are costly as of now, each test costs a mere 10 paisa, he said.Vardhan said in the near future, GPS-based technology could be used to track the exact location where the milk supplied in the cold chain has been tampered with. There are two lakh villages in the country from where milk is collected.

Meanwhile, the government has said that a new technology has been developed to analyse and detect adulteration in milk. Replying to a supplementary question in the Lok Sabha, the Science and Technology Minister said that this was developed by the Pilani-based CSIR-Central Electronics Engineering Research Institute.

The minister said that there are no systems currently available globally based on similar methods. He said this innovation represents the first fully Indian concept to implementation effort in the instrumentation related to milk and dairy.

What’s adulteration?
Adulteration is “the process by which the quality or the nature of a given substance is reduced. Water is a common adulterant to milk, to increase volume and profits. But the problem is that the consumers immediately make out the presence of it.

To avoid getting caught, the adulterator adds certain substances to the ‘watered’ milk to improve its thickness, taste, density and viscosity. The common adulterants are formalin, urea, starch, neutralizers (NaHCO3, Na2 CO3, NaOH, Ca(OH)2 etc.), detergents, sodium chloride, skim milk powder, sucrose, glucose/dextrose, and hydrogen peroxide. Some of these are referred to solid-non-fats (SNF) and are used to cover the quantity of natural fats missing in the ‘watered’ milk.