KOCHI/PATHANAMTHITTA/SABARIMALA : The sale of aravana payasam at Sabarimala ground came to a complete halt on Wednesday following a Kerala High Court order over unsafe pesticide levels in the cardamom used to flavour the prasadam.
The court issued the order to the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) based on the findings of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) that the cardamom used to flavour the aravana contained pesticide levels exceeding the maximum residue limit (MRL) stipulated in the Food Safety and Standards (Contaminants Toxins and Residues) Regulations.
Prasadam sales at the hill shrine were stopped at 4.45pm. TDB president K Ananthagopan later announced that the distribution of cardamom-less aravana will begin from Thursday onwards. A division bench comprising Justice Anil K Narendran and Justice P G Ajithkumar held that the commissioner of food safety, through the food safety officer at Sannidhanam, shall take necessary steps to ensure that the aravana payasam made using cardamom supplied by the present contractor, based in Kollam, is not sold to pilgrims.
The court made clear that the order will not stand in the way of the TDB making the prasadam without cardamom or after procuring cardamom which meets the standards prescribed in the regulations, framed under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, after obtaining a test report from the Government Analyst’s Laboratory, Thiruvananthapuram.
Ananthagopan told reporters at Erumeli that the TDB has taken steps for the production of cardamom-less aravana on a war-footing.
“Production will start on Wednesday night itself and the prasadam will be distributed to pilgrims from Thursday,” he said.
He said unhealthy competition between contractors was a reason for the current issue and TDB will take steps to ensure that such incidents do not happen in future. The TDB counsel submitted to the HC that in one ‘kootu’ for aravana prasadam, which consists of 350kg of ingredients like rice, jaggery, etc, only 720g of cardamom is used.
Streamlining aravana sale key priority: TDB
The samples tested at the Thiruvananthapuram lab as well as at the Quality Evaluation Laboratory of the Spices Board in Kochi were found to contain pesticides exceeding the MRL. “The TDB has the capacity to prepare nearly 2.4 lakh cans of aravana every day. If organic cardamom is made available, the production of cardamom-laced aravana will be resumed soon. Aravana and appam are very important for devotees. In the wake of the High Court order, aravana production was stopped on Wednesday and the machinery and equipment cleaned,” Ananthagopan said.
“Just three days remain for Makaravilakku festival. So streamlining distribution of aravana is one of our key priorities,” he added. The closure of prasadam counters at Lower Thirumuttam and Malikappuram left devotees disappointed. Some counters were reopened to sell the appam prasadam.