(Top) The Telegraph report on January 12, 2012, on milk adulteration and (above) an Omfed processing plant in Bhubaneswar. Telegraph picture

Bhubaneswar, Jan. 20: The Odisha State Cooperative Milk Producers’ Federation Limited (Omfed) has formed six special squads to check the quality of milk following a public outcry against large-scale adulteration.

Omfed is the state’s major milk distributor. It controls about 40 per cent of the dairy market share in the state, selling about 4.2 lakh litres of milk every day.

Chairman-cum managing director of Omfed Satyabrata Sahu said: “We have asked the farmers to supply good quality milk. If they supply milk of poor quality, it will be rejected.”

In most cases, it was found that the farmers added salt and sugar to increase the lactometer point of milk to get more money. Omfed swung into action after a survey conducted by the New Delhi-based Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) revealed that adulteration of milk was widespread in the state. Biren Patnaik, manager of milk procurement, input and marketing at the Cuttack Milk Union, however, felt there was no need to panic. “Through its different district milk unions and societies, Omfed collects raw milk from farmers everyday. The milk is cooled at nearby chilling plants and sent to dairies for processing after it is made to pass through various stages such as pasteurisation, standardisation and homogenisation. After all these stages, milk is packed into 500ml packets.”

Asserting that Omfed milk was of good quality, Patnaik said Omfed’s milk went through quality checks everyday to keep adulteration at bay and to maintain the approved contents of fat per cent, solid not fat (SNF) per cent and vitamins in it.

The FSSAI took 50 samples from Odisha, but none of these conformed to healthy standards. All the samples were found to be adulterated. While 17 samples were taken from rural areas, the rest were picked up from urban pockets. Forty-two samples were collected from milk packets available in the market, while the rest eight samples were taken from milkmen. Out of the 50 samples, 26 samples were found deviating from the required level of fat content while 14 violated the SNF standards.

Patnaik said: “There is no authenticated report collected by FSSAI to establish that Omfed milk as adulterated. If the milk samples are found adulterated, the organisation must tell us what the adulterated elements in it are.”

Omfed public relations officer Subas Chandra Tripathy said: “Though we have written to the FSSAI to send the report to us, they have not yet done so.”