Milk shortage leads to adulteration Consumers complain of poor quality milk products -Tribune News Service

With the gap between the demand and supply of milk increasing due to the soaring temperature, people are complaining of adulteration in milk products.

Consumers are complaining of curd cups manufactured by a private milk products company containing more water than curd.

Similarly, people are complaining of the available milk not yielding enough cream after being boiled.

With the increase in temperature, the demand for milk products such as curd and lassi increases. However, due to high temperature, milk production is hit as the animals are not able to produce as much milk as they produce during the winter.

Gurwinder Singh, a resident of Power House Road, said a private curd seller fails to maintain the thickness of the curd and it usually contains more water.

Chairman, Verka Milk Plant, Sukhpal Singh Sidhu, while admitting to the shortage of milk, said there has been no complaints so far against their company.

“The complaints may relate to private milk plants as the Verka Milk Plant sells products after they undergo all the prescribed tests using modern technology,” Sidhu said.

He said they combat this problem by collecting cream during the winter, which is stored and then processed into ghee. It is then sold during the summer.

“Due to advanced planning, we are not under undue pressure in summer to get more milk for ghee. Consequently, the supply is diverted to creating milk products like lassi and curd, whose quality is better than that of the private milk producers available in the market,” he said.

A dairy farmer said milk production, less than the demand, is witnessed every year in the months of May, June and July.

Sidhu said the daily demand for milk and its products is 7,000 litres, while that in the Cantonment area is around 16,000 litres every day.

The plant has a capacity of 1 lakh tonnes for which 70,0000 litres is collected from the city and nearby areas. Rajasthan Milk Federation contributes around 30,000 litres. The plant also caters to the demand for 30,000 litres of milk in areas like Kotkapura, Faridkot and Ferozepur every day.

As many as 3,000 packets of lassi are sold daily and nearly 2,000 kg of paneer is supplied by the Verka plant every day.

The chairman said the Verka Milk Plant has now begun storing the fat collected during the winters to make ghee in a bid to sell it during summers. The milk sellers said the problem is faced by them every summer and the situation improves with the onset of winter.