PANAJI: The Goa Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) today said that the concentration of formalin found in fish tested by it was "on par" with its "naturally occurring" levels and that there was no "added amount" of it.
The FDA issued a statement today after allegations from some quarters of the media that it had gone back on its findings on the presence of formalin in fish.
FDA teams had yesterday raided wholesale fish markets in Margao in South Goa and Panaji in North Goa and its "spot analysis" of the fish, coming in from other states, had shown the presence of formalin.
The raids had led to protests from the state's fish traders who observed a shutdown in wholesale markets for the entire day yesterday.
In a statement issued today, the FDA said, "The laboratory analysis performed on the fish samples drawn from Margao and Panaji wholesale markets showed the results on par with the naturally occurring concentration for the different fishes tested, ruling out the possibility of added amount of formalin."
The FDA statement informed that the fish samples were checked after it received a communication from the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) to furnish details of sampling of fish and detection, if any, of formalin.
The FDA added that its officials had visited fish markets in Margao and Panaji after observing reports that fish from Chennai had been banned in Assam.
The statement said that a report published by the Society of Fisheries Technologists (India) had stated that the concentration of formaldehyde (formalin) in fish was found to be varying between 2.38 to 2.95 milligram per kilogram.