Indore: Ahead of Diwali, a joint team of food and drug administration department, Indore Municipal Corporation and police seized over 550 kg spurious mawa and over 100 kg adulterated sweets from a bus operator’s office and from an auto rickshaw on Sunday.
The mawa was brought to Indore by a Urvashi Travel’s bus from Ahmedabad at Teen Imli Square from where it was seized. Similarly, the adulterated sweets were seized from an auto rickshaw which was caught by the department officials from Musakhedi Square.
According to chief food officer Manish Swami, those transporting the mawa admitted that the mawa and sweets were prepared with the mixture of palm oil, sugar and milk powder.
“Brijendra Jaiswal, resident of Nanda Nagar, and Jitendra Garg, resident of Morena, were caught with the mawa and they both claimed that they had procured the mawa from Ahmedabad. However, our sources said that the mawa was prepared in Morena and was transported via Kota and Ahmedabad,” Swami said.
He said that Brijendra has informed the officials that he used to supply the mawa in local shops in Nanda Nanda while Jitendra was selling the mawa to small traders in Khajrana.
The department officials have collected the samples of the mawa and sent it for testing.
“We have also asked for licenses from the mawa suppliers and also asking the bus operator about his permission to transport the food products,” Swami said.
Further course of action will be decided only after getting the sample reports of mawa but the department will also write to RTO to take action over supply of food products through bus.
Mawa supplied through other states: According to food safety officer, their sources informed that the mawa was prepared in Morena and Gwalior and was first sent to Kota and Ahmedabad and then re-routed to Indore to avoid detection. Morena is a well known centre for making spurious mawa and officials generally keep a close watch on mawa coming directly from Morena, and hence the subterfuge, official said.
“Due to the strict action and drive against adulterators in the state, the adulterators have started supplying the mawa from other states, In this case, the mawa was first supplied to Kota through train and later transported to Ahmadabad and Indore,” Swami said.
Such mawa is not used in city: After getting information of spurious mawa seized by the administration, city mawa traders claimed that such mawa is not used by city traders. They said that it is transferred to other cities.
Kamal Sharma of Narsingh Mawa Bhandar said “We don’t think any trader in Indore will use such mawa. Most of the mawa is supplied to the city from Itawaria Bazar.”
He further said that such mawa was supplied from Morena and other places and is consumed in the rural areas.
