TIRUPPUR: Acting on complaints that fried Bengal gram and Bengal gram packets sold in PDS shops did not have details of weight and expiry date, the cooperative department has pulled back over 5,200 packets from all PDS shops throughout Tiruppur district. TNIE published a report on the issue on November 21.
A top official from the cooperative department (Tiruppur) said, “Based on the complaints from consumers, a joint team of officials including cooperative department joint registrar (Tiruppur) R Srinivasan and FSSAI (Tiruppur) designated officer Dr Vijayalalithambigai inspected the Tiruppur district consumer cooperative wholesale store at Kangeyam Road.
The packaging machine had some fault because of which the expiry date could not be printed. We immediately rectified the issue and ordered all salesmen to return all fried Bengal gram packets from PDS shops. Around 2,132 packets were pulled from Tiruppur city and 3,268 packets were taken back from PDS shops in the rural segments of Tiruppur district. A total of 5,200 packets were taken back to the store. Since the shelf life of Bengal grams is three months, we have decided to repack them after permission from top officials.”
The official added that report of the inquiry was sent to higher officials in Chennai. “Fried gram is procured through joint purchase committee from Coimbatore from government approved food processing mills which are mostly located in Dharmapuri and Erode districts.”
Elaborating on the quality, FSSAI officer Vijayalalithambigai said, “During the inspections inside the facility, we found the large packets weighing 15-20 kilogram of Bengal gram stacked and they had details of packaging and expiry date. But, the repacking machine which gave out 200-gram packets didn’t carry out the labeling.
The lack of expiry date caused panic among consumers. We pointed out the mistake to the officials. Besides, we found that records and stocks that were packed without labels were matching. The shelf life of the fried Bengal gram is three months and the public needn’t panic. If they find any issues, they can report to the FSSAI department.”
Speaking to TNIE, social activist K Ravi said, “We lodged a complaint to officials last week, but did not respond about the inspection nor the volume of items seized. I suspect officials are not revealing the facts.” However, officials denied there was any malpractice and quality issues.