Milk Of Human Deceit

THESE are some of the things you could be drinking with your daily milk: caustic soda, sugar, common salt, wheat flour, blotting paper, baking soda, urea, hydrogen peroxide, formalin, palmolein oil and detergents, the favourite brands being Nirma and Ezee. Most Indians are resigned to drinking milk diluted with water. But now, hordes of milkmen—especially in north India—are using rough-and-ready chemistry to create 'synthetic milk' that, taken in small daily doses, is poison.

Milk adulterated with chemicals was first detected in Kurukshetra in Haryana in November 1994. In early 1995, more cases were discovered in Punjab and Haryana. Now, the menace has spread to Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, pockets in Himachal Pradesh, and to milk-deficit areas of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Orissa. The groups of adulterated milk suppliers form a deadly ring around Delhi—and a sizeable amount of the milk used in the capital comes from these areas. Punjab, one of the first states where this form of adulteration was discovered, supplies milk to Mother Dairy in Delhi, and to Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. It also supplies milk products like ghee and cheese made from the 'artificial milk' to other states. 

A survey by the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) warned that milk from 12 states had excessive pesticide residues, toxic metals and fungal particles which could lead to serious cancerous effects on the human body. According to Dr R.S. Khanna, managing director, Rajasthan Cooperative Dairy Federation, in a survey of more than 200 villages in a Rajasthan district, adulterated milk with vegetable fat, detergents, urea, salt and other elements were found in about 41 villages. Nirma, allegedly, was the preferred detergent adulterant. Apparently, the brand's smell and texture merged well with milk. Another survey is under way at the National Dairy Research Institute at Karnal in Haryana on the extent of adulteration.

 The recipe for synthetic milk is simple and deadly. In the less harmful variety, the method is to replace the milk fat with vegetable fat. The milk fat is removed using a cream separator now common in village dairies or even the household mixie, and to the resultant skimmed milk, vegetable fat is added. The health hazards are lower in this case, but the consumer loses as he buys milk with cheap vegetable fat at the cost of expensive milk or butter fats. The cream is then sold by unscrupulous dairies at between Rs 80 and Rs 90 a kilo.

The second method exposes the consumer to far more serious health hazards. Here the adulterator adds liquid detergents to the milk. The soap solution increases the viscosity of the milk. Vegetable oil is then poured in, which prevents frothing in the solution. The soap in turn saponifies the oil into an emulsion. The process of saponification adds Free Fatty Acids (otherwise used for soap making) into the milk. Then the adulterator adjusts non-fat solids in the 'milk' by adding common salt or sugar and urea. Finally, he uses a lactometer (used to measure the purity of milk and its fat content) to make sure that the specific gravity of the adulterated milk is the same as that of pure milk. The synthetic milk costs less than Rs 2 per litre to prepare, and is sold at the price of pure milk—Rs 10 to Rs 12 per litre.

According to Dr Anil Saxena, food scientist with the Delhi-based Food Research and Analysis Centre (FRAC), urea increases the nitrogen content in milk which ultimately determines the protein content. But urea makes milk acidic, so a dash of caustic soda is added to neutralise the acidity. Chemicals like formalin are used primarily for preservation. The use of urea and soap solution in milk, says Saxena, is harmful for the stomach and intestines while the use of caustic soda could lead to skin diseases and even be carcinogenic.

Indian Dairy Association President Ani-mesh Banerjee points out that the problem of synthetic milk is mainly in the unorganised sector, where, without any proper system of checking and testing, it is difficult to detect the presence of synthetic milk. However, considering that only about eight million tonnes out of a total of 63 million tonnes of milk produced in the country comes from the organised sector, the extent of penetration of the so-called synthetic milk in the Indian households is anybody's guess. And is cause for panic.

DAIRY experts feel that the adulteration stems from an artificial demand in the market against a limited source of sup-ply of milk especially as many companies had entered the dairy business after the sector was delicenced three years ago. For example, Haryana has a marketable surplus of four lakh litres of milk per day while the state's private sector milk plants have a handling capacity of 24 lakh litres a day, leaving a yawning demand-gap which was filled by synthetic milk production.

An official at the Directorate General of Health Services, which is responsible for monitoring the implementation of the Prevention of Food Adulteration (PFA) Act, says that as far as the Government is concerned, there are no reports of detection of such adulteration of milk since early 1995 and there is no cause for concern. However, in reality, the Government recently formed a committee of state secretaries which met in Delhi in April this year to work out a solution. A proposal for a law to strengthen the PFA is also under consideration.

The Government is of the view that the situation is under control with self-regulation in cooperatives and random checking of samples apart from regular checks by food inspectors in districts. However, at most places there are not enough officials to take samples and test them. And, claims Dr Saxena, these tests can only determine the quantity of fat and SNF content in milk, while only very well-equipped and sophisticated laboratories will be able to detect the presence of urea, caustic soda or detergents.

A checking mechanism was proposed in 1992 by the National Dairy Development Board—the holding agency of all dairy cooperatives in the country—at whose insistence, the Ministry of Agriculture enacted the Milk and Milk Products Order, 1992, which laid down stringent standards for quality of milk and also talked about compulsory registration for dairy units. But, it has never been implemented.

Some state governments and larger milk agencies are taking steps to fight the menace . But unless synthetic milk is tackled on a war footing, notions about the sanctity of milk will have to be changed.