Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation’s health department conducted 25 rapid tests on ghee sold by traders in Maninagar ahead of Diwali, with no vegetable fat detected at the inspection sites. However, 11 samples have been sent to the public health laboratory, and the final position on their quality will be known only after the laboratory reports are issued, Gujarat Samachar – Ahmedabad reported.
The inspection was part of the AMC’s pre-Diwali drive covering food businesses involved in the production, storage and sale of sweets, mawa, ghee and other festive food products. The department carried out checks at ghee traders in Maninagar to examine whether vegetable fat had been mixed with the product.
According to the report, rapid tests were conducted on ghee from several brands, including Dynamic, Mother Dairy, Shrimant, Ram, Chandramal, Dodla, Nova, Paras and Govardhan. The report’s detailed account refers to 11 brands and approximately 25 tests, while its headline mentions 10 brands. The on-site tests did not detect the presence of vegetable fat in any of the samples tested.
The rapid-test results are not the final assessment of the ghee’s quality. The AMC collected 11 samples and sent them to its public health laboratory for more detailed analysis. The laboratory findings will determine whether further action is required under food-safety provisions. Until those reports are available, the inspection has established only that vegetable fat was not detected in the rapid tests conducted at the sites.
The Maninagar checks follow other food-safety action reported by the AMC during the pre-Diwali campaign. In an earlier case, the health department seized 510 kilograms of substandard mawa from a cold-storage facility in Gomtipur and sealed the Tulsi Mava Centre. The report said the mawa was manufactured in Vallabhnagar in Rajasthan, following which the Gujarat and Rajasthan food and drug departments were informed for further action.
The AMC also identified seven establishments in areas including Naroda, Meghaninagar, Nana Chiloda, Khokhra, Nikol and the Dehgam Road area that were allegedly supplied mawa by the centre. Separately, the corporation placed 41,400 kilograms of products from Radhika Food Products on hold after packets of Rajwadi Sweet and Indian Dessert reportedly lacked details such as batch number, lot number, manufacturing date and expiry date. The company was issued a notice under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, and further action is to follow after its response.
For the Maninagar ghee samples, the next formal step is the public health laboratory’s analysis. The AMC’s final action, if any, will depend on those reports and the subsequent legal process.
