Punjab warns strict action against dealers for selling adulterated mustard oil

Chandigarh, Sep 10 (PTI) Punjab Food and Drug Administration Commissioner K S Pannu Monday warned unscrupulous dealers of strict action if they were found selling adulterated mustard oil.

"Cheap palm oil, crude rice bran oil, and crude soybean oil are being mixed with mustard oil by many unscrupulous dealers, bottlers and manufacturers. Even colors and chemicals are being added to match the acidity and color of mustard oil," Pannu said here.

Sensitisation activities against adulteration have been conducted on all fora and warning and cautioning has also been done for long now, he said.

"We have given people a chance to mend their ways. Now they have either to desist from adulteration or face prosecution," he said in an official release here.

Mustard is sown in about one lakh acres during winter in the state, with a total production of about 4.8 lakh quintals.

Farmers growing mustard are robbed of genuine profit due to markets being flooded by adulterated mustard oil, he said.

Pannu said committees had been constituted to raid adulterating units and to seize the substandard adulterated mustard oil.