CUTTACK: A Ghee adulteration unit was busted by the Commissionerate Police on Monday at Moonlight lane in Pithapur under Badambadi police limits. On a tip off, police and health officials of the Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) raided a house with eight rooms from where the unit was operating in a clandestine manner. They found a large quantity of spurious ghee packed under the brand names of Durga and Sri Ganesh Ghee stocked in each of the rooms.
Apart from seizure of a truck load of adulterated ghee, police also found raw materials like ‘dalda’, ‘banaspati’ and palmolein oil, chemical colours, essence, manufacturing and packaging machines, packing materials and logos of Durga and Sri Ganesh Ghee brands from the unit. The seized items are estimated to be more than Rs 50 lakh. Preliminary investigation revealed the spurious ghee was being manufactured using chemicals and essence besides, cheap oils.
The unit was operating for more than three years. Police said while the manufacturing cost of one kg of the fake ghee was within Rs 100, the manufacturer sold it for Rs 500 to Rs 600 per kg by labelling the packets with logos of brands. Proprietor of the fake unit Bibhuti Bhusan Lenka has been detained. Two other fake ghee units were busted in Cuttack last month - one in Jagatpur industrial area and another in Sriram Nagar under Bailasi Mouza locality.
Similarly, police had raided a spurious ghee and edible oil manufacturing unit at Gabagasta in the outskirts of the city and seized huge quantities of fake ghee in November. The Commissionerate police has so far busted 19 food adulteration units manufacturing ghee, spices, sauces, soya chunk and gutka without authorisation in and around the city and arrested more than 20 persons. Adulterated food materials worth more than Rs 7 crore were seized from these units.