The Health Ministry has issued a show-cause notice to one of the companies that supplied ghee to the Tirupati temple, sources said. The notice has been sent by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), the government’s food regulatory authority. Four samples of the concerned ghee-supplier were tested and all of them were found to be adulterated.
The temple had four ghee suppliers for making laddus and of these, samples of one of the suppliers were found to be reportedly adulterated.
The supplier came under scrutiny after a report by NDDB CALF, a private laboratory specialising in testing animal feed and dairy products, found that ghee samples used in these laddus contained foreign fats and non-dairy products, including palm oil, fish oil, beef tallow, and lard (pig fat).
According to a senior Health Ministry official, ghee by definition “has to made from milk” and is considered as a “dairy product”. “Depending on the response, action will be taken against the supplier as per provisions of food regulation and adulteration acts in the country,” the official said.
In its notice, the FSSAI has sought reasons from the ghee-supplier as a to why its central license shall not be suspended “for contravention”. (businessline has reviewed a copy of the show-cause notice.)
Monkey Pox Case
Health Ministry sources confirmed that a 38-year-old from Kerala who contracted monkeypox has been infected with the MPOX Clade-I strain. This is the first case of the strain in the country. The Kerala resident had returned from UAE and contract tracing in reportedly under-way.
There are two distinct clades of the virus – Clade-I (which includes sub-categories like Clade 1a and 1b) and Clade-II with (subclades include IIa and IIb). In August, WHO declared MPOX outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.