STC EXCLUSIVE: Festival Rush, Adulterated Dairy and J&K’s Traceability Test
J&K’s food-safety machinery must demonstrate that traceability, surprise enforcement and accountability are stronger than the profit motive of those who adulterate.
By Anuj Kumar Verma
As Navratris begin, Jammu and Kashmir enters nearly two months of peak demand for milk, paneer, cheese, khoya, desi ghee and sweets. This is precisely the season when volumes rise, supplies move quickly and the temptation to dilute, substitute or mislabel dairy products becomes greatest.
J&K produced about 29.73 lakh metric tonnes of milk in 2024–25, up from 28.74 lakh MT in 2023–24 and 28.17 lakh MT in 2022–23. Yet the government has acknowledged a demand–supply gap, setting a target of raising production to 43 lakh tonnes by 2030. Until then, the Union Territory will continue to depend on milk, paneer, cheese, khoya, ghee and milk powder sourced largely from Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and other states.
That dependence is not inherently unsafe. The concern is whether every consignment entering J&K—particularly during the festival rush—can be traced from source to retail counter, sampled where necessary and tested quickly enough to keep unsafe stock out of the market.
Adulteration Is an Organised Risk
Across northern India, dairy adulteration has increasingly taken the form of organised malpractice rather than isolated vendor-level wrongdoing. Enforcement agencies have repeatedly found milk diluted or contaminated with detergents, urea, starch, glucose, neutralisers and other non-milk substances, while paneer and cheese have been made using vegetable fats, animal fats, starch and non-milk solids.
Recent cases underline the scale of the problem. In October 2026, Maharashtra’s FDA identified 37 accused in an alleged milk-adulteration network and arrested and charge-sheeted 25; laboratory tests reportedly found detergent and industrial chemicals in milk samples. In the same month, food-safety officials in Etah, Uttar Pradesh, raided a dairy and seized about 10 quintals of suspected adulterated paneer, one quintal of ghee, cream, soybean, skimmed-milk powder and edible oils.
These cases do not establish that every consignment entering J&K is adulterated. Punjab, Haryana and Delhi have large legitimate dairy sectors, too. But they show that adulteration networks can exploit weak links in collection, transport, chilling, processing and retail supply.
For J&K, Lakhanpur is a critical surveillance point. There are apprehensions that dairy consignments linked to adulteration networks elsewhere may enter the Union Territory during the festival season. That concern demands a factual response: consignment-level records, sampling at entry points and rapid laboratory testing.
Vigilance Must Begin Within J&K
External checks alone will not protect consumers. The FDA must maintain strict, year-round vigil over all milk dairies, collection centres, chilling units, processed milk plants, paneer and khoya units, sweet manufacturers and ghee processors operating within J&K. During the festival season, inspections should be frequent, unannounced and risk-based. Food Safety Officers should conduct surprise checks at dairy premises, verify procurement and sales records, inspect hygiene and cold-chain conditions, and lift samples of raw milk, processed milk, paneer, cheese, khoya, ghee and sweets without prior notice. The objective must be deterrent enforcement. Dairy owners and processed-milk-unit operators should know that adulteration, dilution, use of non-milk fats or solids, poor hygiene and false labelling will invite immediate sampling, laboratory testing, seizure, prosecution and public disclosure.
J&K’s Own Record Demands Action
J&K cannot treat dairy adulteration as an outside problem. In August 2025, enforcement teams in the Jammu division seized 440 quintals of substandard rasgulla and 8.2 quintals of paneer found unfit for human consumption. In September 2026, police in Jammu seized 20 bags of suspected adulterated paneer from a bus.
The ghee record is particularly troubling. In August 2026, the J&K FDA prohibited the sale, storage, distribution and display of 10 specified batches of ghee after laboratory testing found quality violations, including indicators of foreign vegetable fat. The affected batches were sold under names including Dairy Mohan, Apna Dairy Milk, Milk Bite, Nandni, Shahi Taj, Daawat Fresh, Nand Krishna, Vandu, Dairy Milk and Mohan Dairy.
Weeks later, the FDA prohibited four more affected ghee batches—Milk Bite, Pehalwan, Swift and Sangath—after tests indicated vegetable or foreign fat. Samples had been collected from Anantnag, Jammu, Kathua, Samba and Pulwama and tested at notified laboratories, including the National Food Laboratory, Ghaziabad.
These were batch-specific prohibitions, not blanket bans on every product sold under those brand names. Even so, repeated detection of foreign fat in ghee marketed as pure desi ghee is a serious warning about weaknesses in the dairy chain.
Enforcement Without Disclosure Is Not Enough
The FDA’s 2025 record shows activity, but also a transparency gap. During a dedicated ghee drive in late 2025, officials seized 80.78 kg of stock; of 41 samples tested, 12 failed quality standards, leading to prohibition orders against manufacturers. The FDA also reported more than 13,000 inspections during 2025. Yet the public still lacks a consolidated, district-wise account of milk, paneer, cheese, khoya, ghee and sweet samples lifted during October, November and December 2025—the core festival months. Consumers do not know how many samples were tested, how many failed, how many cases were filed, which firms were prosecuted, or what penalties and convictions followed.
The FDA should publish this information for October–December 2025 and the current festival period: total samples lifted, failed samples, cases registered, names of major violators, and the status of prosecutions, seizures, fines and convictions. Enforcement that disappears from public view allows unsafe supply chains to return quietly in the next season.
Adulterants are not harmless fillers. Repeated exposure to urea, detergents, unsafe dyes and chemical preservatives can burden the kidneys and liver, disturb digestion and contribute to long-term organ stress. Adulterated ghee, often based on vegetable or animal fats, can worsen lipid profiles and increase stress on the liver and kidneys. Doctors rightly caution that an individual illness cannot always be traced to one food item. But festival consumption is concentrated: families buy sweets, paneer, khoya and ghee in larger quantities, often from loose or unbranded sources. A contaminated batch can move from a dairy or transport truck to a household kitchen within days.
The FDA should treat dairy safety as a continuous public-health system rather than a seasonal drive. It must maintain a register of every milk and milk-product consignment entering J&K, recording the supplier, transporter, vehicle number, origin, invoice, batch number, quantity, destination, sample lifted and laboratory result.
At Lakhanpur and other transit points, samples of high-risk products—loose milk, paneer, cheese, khoya, ghee and sweets—should be lifted routinely, with rapid testing so suspect stock does not remain in circulation while reports are awaited. Milk-powder consignments require equal scrutiny: importer, brand, batch, FSSAI licence, invoice, intended use and laboratory result should be verifiable.
Within the UT, every dairy and processed-milk unit should face regular surprise inspections and random sampling, with results published district-wise. The FDA should also disclose its enforcement capacity: the number of operational Food Safety on Wheels units, their locations, tests conducted, sanctioned versus actual food-safety officers, laboratory backlog and adjudication pendency.
Safe food is a basic right. During a festival season built around milk, sweets and ghee, J&K’s food-safety machinery must demonstrate that traceability, surprise enforcement and accountability are stronger than the profit motive of those who adulterate.
(STRAIGHT TALK COMMUNICATIONS EXCLUSIVE. The author s an Environmental Advocate and Policy Writer, and Convenor of We The Humans Forum for Nature and Mankind, a public charitable trust. He can be reached at verma.anujjk@gmail.com)
